If you can read this article and not feel compelled to act, I have failed to communicate the significance of the problem, and your role in its solution. This is a plea for you to write some letters. Immediately, please.

The Stranding: On 15 March 2000 an unprecedented mass stranding of seventeen whales and dolphins began in the Bahamas, including Blainville's beaked whales, Cuvier's beaked whales, at least one spotted dolphin, one Minke whale and one fin or Bryde's whale. No natural disaster has ever been known to produce such an event. Human responses were heroic but quickly overwhelmed because of the scattered nature of the strandings from Abaco to Grand Bahama to the north, and Eleuthera to the south. Sharks were also a threat. Specific details of the stranding are included in a preliminary report by Ken Balcomb and Diane Claridge of the Bahamas Marine Mammal Survey on Abaco, Bahamas, which is available from CSI on request, or on CSI's web site at http://csiwhalesalive.org/csiupdat.html. In the report they mention that the typical stranding rate of cetaceans in the Bahama Islands is one or two reported per year in the entire island chain.

Besides Balcomb and Claridge the human response included the Bahamian Fisheries Department, local residents, scientists and officials, Charles Potter of the Smithsonian Institution, and a team led by Dr. Darlene Ketten of Harvard Medical School and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The Navy: The U.S. Navy and British Royal Navy conducted an undersea warfare acoustical test called the Littoral Warfare Advanced Development (LWAD) Sea Test, program number 00-1, which apparently began about 1:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. on 15 March off Abaco Island, in a zone designated as Area "A" that extended from Cape Canaveral in the north to the Bahamas in the south, approximately 100 nautical miles east of Florida. LWAD 00-1 continued into Areas "B" and "C" through 22 March, tracking the eastern seaboard approximately 50 nm off the coast of South Carolina.

The exercise was testing what the Navy calls the Directional Command Activated Sonobuoy System, and involved a Navy P-3 aircraft dropping two buoys north of Abaco, one as close as 35 miles to the island, the other 70 to 75 miles from the island. One buoy emitted a sonar signal which was manipulated and returned by the other, as a target submarine was moving between the two buoys. Future tests are apparently scheduled for sometime in late May to early June (LWAD 00-2) and late September to early October (LWAD 00-3).

Instead of agreeing that the stranding and the LWAD 00-1 tests may be connected, which is a logical, prudent and honorable assumption, and supporting an investigation into the relationship, which is Navy policy, the Navy denies any connection because there is no unequivocal proof of pathological injury to any whales from acoustical sources the Navy used. In fact, in an obvious breakdown of Naval policy, the tests continued after the Navy became aware of the strandings, and continued into the known calving and migrating area of the extremely endangered right whale during a critical time.

Even if there was no physical damage to the whales' ears, the whales may have died because of the characteristics of the sonar sounds they heard. Perhaps the noise caused disorientation, or simply frightened them into the shallows as suggested by Ken Balcomb. It is also plausible that the noise might have disoriented or terrified many more animals, and the strandings were just a sample of the true impact.

CSI demands that the Navy invoke the Precautionary Principle, stop denying reality because of the lack of unequivocal proof, and admit that in our collective ignorance we may be doing serious harm to marine life. CSI demands that the Navy must stop all future LWAD Sea Tests pending a thorough and public investigation into the mass stranding of cetaceans that occurred in the Bahamas on 15 and 16 March 2000.

Right now we must act to prevent the Bahamas tragedy from being covered up, ignored, and wasted.

Your Role: What are we asking you to do? You have the remarkable power to write to your Senators and Representatives in Congress, and other officials, and express your concerns with the LWAD and all Navy undersea warfare acoustical tests.

Whom to contact: First, look for the names and addresses of your Senators and Representatives in the blue pages of your phone book. They need to hear from you because a constituent's concerns, particularly in a letter, enables them to get involved, inquire, and seek changes. Your letter to a Member of Congress is a priority and may be the key to answers and action. That is the way our system works and your role in it. We all have busy lives; if nothing else please write these letters now, while the issue is fresh in your mind.

If you can do more please write the following people:

Hon. Richard Danzig, Secretary of the Navy, United States Department of the Navy, United States Pentagon, Rm. 4E-686, Washington, DC 20350. Fax: (703) 614-3477.

Ms. Donna Wieting, Chief, Marine Mammal Conservation Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3326. Fax: (301) 713-0376.

Mr. John W. Twiss, Executive Director, U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, 4340 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814. Fax: (301) 504-0099.