Navy exercise used to study whales

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The U.S. government used the Navy's annual Rim of the Pacific exercise this year to conduct large-scale research on the effects of sonar on whales.

The data will take months to analyze, The Virginian Pilot reported. In three weeks, researchers from universities and government agencies tagged about 40 whales, about half of them pilot whales.

"This was the first time that we were ever able to tag these animals around realistic military exercises," said Brandon Southall, director of the ocean acoustics program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries division.

Southall said that most of the tagging in the Pacific was done with satellite tags, which remain on a whale for several weeks and transmit data on its movements to a satellite. In a three-year study off the Bahamas, researchers are relying more on archival tags, which remain with the whale for a short time and then detach. The tags, which have to be retrieved by researchers, provide what Southall called "exquisite detail" for a few hours.

Scientists fear that sonar, used to track ship movements, can interfere with whales, which use sound to find food and each other.