Sonar Injuring Marine Mammals

Marine Mammals The author of this response has been asked to answer to a fairly specific question. The question at hand is whether marine mammals can suffer from decompression sickness. If they can, the author of this report is to confirm this. The author would also need to confirm under what circumstances the marine mammals would suffer from the sickness. Only scientific papers and journal offerings will be used to answer this question.

First off, the answer to the question at hand is an absolute "yes." Marine mammals can indeed incur decompression sickness and this would include any mammals who engage in diving. It was once thought that marine mammals were generally immune to decompression sickness but more recent findings have found this to be untrue (Hooker et al., 2012). This phenomenon has been verified through the use of diagnostic imaging in creatures like cetaceans and pinnipeds (Dennison, Fahlman & Moore, 2012).

A real-world example of this examination was done to a sea lion in California. That sea lion was found to have hypermetric ataxia and bilateral negative menace reflexes. The injuries happened after a dive of about 150 meters. As with humans, the damage was likely caused by ascending from the dive too quickly. However, it was absolutely due to a quick and sudden change in ambient pressure around the animal (Van Bonn et al., 2011).

However, there are others that assert that sonar activity from naval vessels causes the damage as well, or perhaps instead of simple diving and ascending (Fahlman, Tyack, Miller & Kvadsheim, 2014). However, there is far from a consensus as to what is really causing the damaged and this even includes the United States Navy and their studies on the use of sonor and the potential damage it wreaks (Dalton, 2006). References Dalton, R. (2006). Panel quits in row over sonar damage. Nature, 439(7075), 376-377. Dennison, S., Fahlman, A., & Moore, M. (2012).

The use of diagnostic imaging for identifying abnormal gas accumulations in cetaceans and pinnipeds. Frontiers In Physiology, 31-25. doi:10.3389/fphys.2012.00181 Fahlman, A., Tyack, P. L., Miller, P. O., & Kvadsheim, P. H. (2014). How.