Beached Dolphins? Blame The Navy!

Cross-posted from The Stupid Shall Be Punished:

There's another case of a mass dolphin beaching on the coast of Zanzibar this week, and the MSM immediately decides that Navy sonar (and in particular submarine sonar) is to blame. From the last-linked article, provocatively titled "Submarine Sonar Suspected in Mystery Death of 400 Dolphins":

"It was not immediately clear what killed the 400 dolphins, whose carcasses were strewn along a four-kilometre stretch of Nungwi, said Narriman Jidawi, a marine biologist at the Institute of Marine Science in Zanzibar...
"...In the United States, experts were investigating the possibility that sonar from US submarines could have been responsible for a similar incident in Marathon, Florida, where 68 deep-water dolphins stranded themselves in March last year...
"...A US Navy taskforce patrols the East Africa coast as part of counter-terrorism operations."

It's interesting that they call it a U.S. Navy task force, since it includes Dutch and French ships, along with those of other allies; it's all part of CTF 150, which is currently commanded by a Pakistani Vice Admiral (who recently relieved a Dutch Commodore).

I said earlier that surveillance of the areas of heavy piracy off the Somali coast would be a good job for a submarine, but I'd be surprised if we actually have a boat there. As I mentioned, we do have a allied Naval Task Force further north along the African Coast. Whatever they're doing there, it's unlikely that they'd be using a lot of sonar, and any submarine that might be there almost assuredly wouldn't be going active. Still, rather than worry about facts like this, it's much easier for the press to just try to blame the Americans for something bad, since apparently we're responsible for every bad thing that happens in the world (/sarcasm).

posted by Bubblehead @ 11:05 PM