To the Editor,
Re: Real action needed to help whales, Saturday Beat, April 14.
Studies have already been done by European countries in regards to the adverse effects of attaching sonar devices to fishing nets to deter mammals.
The study was done because it was not linked to a military activity. They found that the sonar blasts were not only scaring mammals away but in fact killing some and resulting in beaching.
The most recent local story about military activity has brought a public awareness to the killing of a whale which sits at the top of the food chain.
Continual military testing activity in the newly renamed Salish Sea might be an ignored factor in regards to affecting the food chain and migratory fish returns.
Let’s just assume that the department of fisheries may not be allowed to study the adverse effects of military testing by a foreign country in our waters.
Let’s also assume the military testing may be affecting a creature or fish in the area that feeds the rest of the food chain.
Sonar could be wiping out trillions of food chain creatures that are the size of a flea. Without them, everything else in the food chain starves.
Matt James
Nanaimo
