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This is unfortunate. Whales are singularly majestic creatures -- and I suspect that if we fully understood how intelligent they are, we'd be even more uncomfortable with this than is already the case.It might sound like something out of a bad sci-fi film: whales sent into suicidal dashes toward the ocean's surface to escape the madness-inducing echo chamber that we humans have made of their sound-sensitive habitat. But since the Canary Islands stranding in 2002, similar necropsy results have turned up with a number of beached whales, and the deleterious effects of sonar and other human-generated sounds on ocean ecosystems have been firmly established.
As described in a 2005 report published by the Natural Resources Defense Council, "Sounding the Depths II: The Rising Toll of Sonar, Shipping and Industrial Ocean Noise on Marine Life," oceans that as recently as 100 years ago had been one vast, ongoing whale and piscine chorus have now essentially become senses-wilting miasmas of human-made noise. At a 2004 International Whaling Commission symposium, more than 100 scientists signed a statement asserting that the association between sonar and whale deaths "is very convincing and appears overwhelming."
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