Help Protect Whales from Deadly Sonar

International Fund for Animal Welfare
May 10, 2005


Help Protect Whales from Deadly Sonar


We're taking our campaign to protect whales from deadly naval sonar to the doorstep of NATO - and we need your help.

Please go to the IFAW Action Center now (http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M68746127416387214383765) and send a message to the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), urging member countries to stop deploying high-powered sonar systems in sensitive whale habitats around the world.

Last month we began making our case directly to NATO officials. Now it's critically important that they hear a worldwide outcry from concerned citizens in support of our cause.


The dangers of military sonar to whales

As the military alliance of 26 nations - including the United States - NATO includes the world's biggest users of lethal military sonar. In fact, several mass strandings of whales have been linked directly to joint NATO exercises, including strandings in the Canary Islands and along the coast of Greece.

There is no dispute that intense bursts of high-powered sonar can and do kill whales. The scientists of the International Whaling Commission have stated that the evidence linking such naval sonar to whale strandings appears "overwhelming."

The scientific journal "Nature" has reported that intense, active sonar may kill marine mammals by causing their internal organs to hemorrhage. Other harmful effects of intense sonar to marine mammals include avoidance of and displacement from habitats, permanent tissue damage, and temporary hearing loss.

In the face of this alarming evidence, it's simply cruel and wrong to use high-powered sonar in routine training exercises without taking common-sense steps to protect whales, dolphins and other marine life. That's why a worldwide coalition of environmental groups, including IFAW, is pressuring NATO and its member countries to stop inflicting this needless suffering on marine mammals.

Please make your own voice heard in defense of whales right now. Speak out here (http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M68746137416387214383765) and call on NATO to take immediate steps to protect marine mammals from deadly sonar.

Thank you for taking action.

Sincerely,

Fred O'Regan
President and CEO