An E-mail From the President: Yes, Virginia: There IS Hope

Dear Friend:

Thank you for writing to me about the BP oil 

spill. I will stand with the people of the 

Gulf Coast until they are made whole, 

and I appreciate your perspective as we

continue to do everything we can to 

address this crisis.

The Gulf is one of the richest and most 

beautiful ecosystems on the planet. For 

centuries, its residents have enjoyed 

and made a living off the fish that swim

in its waters and the wildlife that inhabit

its shores. The Gulf is also the heartbeat

of the region's economic life, and this oil

spill has upended whole communities.

My Administration will continue to 

leverage every resource at our disposal

to protect coastlines, to clean up the oil

, to hold BP and other companies 

accountable for damages, to begin 

to restore the bounty and beauty of

this region, and to aid the hardworking

people of the Gulf as they rebuild their

businesses and communities. For 

information about response efforts,

available assistance, or how to help, 

please visit: 

www.WhiteHouse.gov/deepwater-bp-oil-spill. 

Individuals affected by the BP oil spill 

can also find resources by calling the 

United States Coast Guard at 

1-800-280-7118, and small businesses

can find support by calling 1-800-659-2955.

Thank you again for contacting me. I 

encourage you to visit WhiteHouse.gov 

to learn more about my Administration 

or to contact me in the future.

  

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

  

For more information about our clean energy agenda, please visit www.WhiteHouse.gov/issues/energy-and-environment

A Win for the Endangered Sea Turtles

Dear Auntie Nanuuq,

Victory for Gulf Sea Turtles

I'm happy to report that there's finally a glimmer of good news for wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.

Today, in response to heavy public criticism and facing a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity and our partners, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard backed down and agreed to stop letting endangered sea turtles be burned alive during surface-oil cleanup operations.

This is a major stride in protecting these important, rare animals, including the highly endangered Kemp's ridley -- already under assault from the millions of gallons of toxic oil gushing into its marine and coastal environment.

Today's big announcement came just moments before a court hearing in New Orleans on our lawsuit brought with Turtle Island Restoration Network, Animal Welfare Institute and Animal Legal Defense Team. We're being represented in the suit by Meyer Gliztenstein & Crystal of Washington, D.C. The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order on oil-burning activities.

And it comes after your support earlier this week when we turned the public spotlight on BP by hand-delivering tens of thousands of petition signatures to the oil company, calling for an end to this gruesome practice. It means so much to be able to count on you when it's needed most for the imperiled plants, animals and wild spaces we work to protect. Thank you.

But it's not over yet. We'll need your continued help in supporting efforts to hold BP and the government accountable -- not only to safeguard sea turtles but to ensure that this mess is properly cleaned up and that a similar offshore drilling disaster never happens again.

Thanks again for your help in protecting endangered sea turtles in the Gulf, and I hope you share in this victory as you head into the holiday weekend.

Sincerely,

Kierán Suckling Executive Director Center for Biological Diversity

P.S. Here's more on this breaking news from The Washington Post.

Settlement Reached on Guarding Against Burning Deaths of Sea Turtles in Gulf
The Washington Post // July 2, 2010
by Juliet Eilperin

The Coast Guard and BP reached a settlement Friday with environmental groups over the issue of how best to guard against accidentally killing endangered sea turtles during controlled burns in the Gulf of Mexico aimed at curbing the oil spill's spread.

Three environmental groups -- the Center for Biological Diversity, the Turtle Island Restoration Network and the Animal Defense League -- had sued in federal court in New Orleans on Wednesday, charging that oil spill responders had taken inadequate precautions while conducting the controlled burns. While activists have not found charred remains of endangered Kemp's Ridley or other sea turtles in the region, they argued the animals are at risk because they tend to congregate in sargassum, seagrasses that burn crews frequently target.

Under the settlement, the two sides have agreed the Coast Guard will soon convene a group of scientists to determine how best to ensure that no endangered sea turtles die during controlled burns. The environmental groups will have input into assembling the group of experts, and the protocol scientists devise will be put on a fast track for public comment so it can be finalized quickly.

"Sea turtles are already suffering catastrophically from the oil spill and it would be outrageous to add insult to injury by burning them alive in the spill cleanup effort," said the Center for Biological Diversity's executive director Kieran Suckling in an interview. "It's a no-brainer to put sea turtle observers on the cleanup boasts and whisk the turtles out of the oil pools before they're set on fire."

No burning will take place in the gulf before Tuesday, because of poor weather conditions, and by then BP and the Coast Guard must inform the environmental groups whether they are prepared to put scientific observers on every burn boat to identify and remove all turtles before any burns resume.

If they can not make that assurance, Suckling said, the plaintiffs "will be back" in court challenging the controlled burns.

Neither the Coast Guard nor BP could be immediately reached for comment.

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Kemp's Ridley sea turtle photo courtesy NOAA.

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Center for Biological Diversity

P.O. Box 710

Tucson, AZ 85702

1-866-357-3349

www.BiologicalDiversity.org

Stop BP?ARCO From Burning Sea Turtles Alive

 

 

Burned Alive - Help Stop BP from Torching Endangered Sea Turtles

Endangered sea turtles are being burned alive as part of BP's careless oil spill cleanup efforts.

This is unacceptable. These rare, important turtles are becoming trapped in the oily surface of the Gulf and then torched by cleanup crews in "controlled burns" of corralled oil -- any wildlife caught inside the corral are literally burned alive.

And it's illegal: As protected species under the Endangered Species Act, anyone responsible for killing a Kemp's Ridley sea turtle -- the turtle most affected by the Gulf oil disaster -- is liable for criminal penalties including prison time and civil fines of up to $25,000 for each violation.

As reported in The New York Times, the oil cleanup crew's "so-called burn boxes are torching oil from the water's surface at the sacrifice of turtles, crabs, sea slugs and other sea life."

Take action below right now and send this to all your friends. Tell BP to stop torching endangered sea turtles. The turtles should not be burned alive in the process of cleaning up the oil spill that's already destroying their habitat. We can stop it and get the turtles out of harm’s way with your help.

Protect Our Wildlife & Oceans

Dear Wildlife Supporter,

Today, the Obama administration announced a plan that could lead to the opening of vast new areas along America’s coasts to harmful offshore oil and gas drilling…

• Endangering polar bears, walrus and bowhead whales in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska;
• Threatening highly endangered North Atlantic right whales along the eastern sea board; and
• Jeopardizing commercial fisheries and vital habitat for threatened sea turtles along North Carolina’s Outer Banks and the southeast coast.

Please call the White House right now at 202-456-1111 and deliver this important message:
 

My name is  [your first name] Friend of Defenders and I am calling from Tujunga, California. As someone who cares about wildlife and the environment, I am extremely disappointed in today’s White House announcement on offshore drilling.

It does nothing to curb our dependence on fossil fuels and threatens the health of coastal waters. Endangered North Atlantic right whales, polar bears and other precious wildlife rely on these waters for their survival.

Now, more than ever, it is urgent that the president supports comprehensive climate and energy legislation to address harmful climate change and meet America’s energy needs in a clean and sustainable manner… without sacrificing our ocean waters or furthering our dependence on dirty drilling and fossil fuels that contribute to climate change.

Please click here to let us know that you’ve called. We will be tracking opposition to the worst parts of this proposal in preparation for the long fight to protect our coasts.

The announcement isn’t all bad news: We are pleased that the Obama administration has decided to protect Alaska’s salmon-rich Bristol Bay and the California coast until 2017.

But we’re extremely concerned about the administration’s efforts to expand offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic and Mid-Atlantic coasts.

The administration’s desire to expand oil drilling risks the health of marine wildlife, fisheries and coastal economies. It continues to expand our dependence on fossil fuels at a time when we need to reduce our dependence in order to address the harmful impacts of global warming.

President Obama needs to hear from you today! Please call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 and let the president know that you OPPOSE industrializing our coasts.

With Gratitude,

Rodger Schlickeisen President Defenders of Wildlife

P.S. To learn more about the potentially devastating impacts of increased drilling off our coasts, please visit our website.

Obama Risks
Ocean Wildlife

The endangered North Atlantic right whale is just one species threatened by President Obama’s call for expanded offshore drilling. New seismic testing for oil and gas deposits off our coasts could disrupt the migration and reproduction of these critically endangered whales.
Speak out for America’s marine wildlife! Call the White House now….

More Wildlife in Peril

• Expanded drilling increases the risk of catastrophic oil spills that can decimate commercial fisheries, wreck tourist economies and destroy vital habitat for shore birds and sea turtles. 

• Oil spills also kill sea birds and other marine life directly through oiling and poisoning by ingestion as animals try to clean themselves and toxins are absorbed from the fish birds eat.

Help Save Our Planet...Wear a Condom

Help stop overpopulation -- distribute endangered species condoms.

Dear Auntie- Nanuuq,

The Earth currently supports 6.8 billion people, with almost 80 million more added each year. No large mammal has ever grown to such numbers and commandeered so many resources. Animals and plants are severely threatened by human overpopulation -- and the Center for Biological Diversity is doing something about it.

Soon we'll be launching an exciting new project to distribute free endangered species-themed condoms all over the country. The project will raise awareness about overpopulation's serious impacts on our planet and spark, we hope, new conversations about the need to bring Homo sapiens back into balance with the rest of life on Earth.

Since we asked for your support two weeks ago, more than 900 people have volunteered to help distribute condoms in their hometowns -- an incredible response. I'm so impressed by our supporters' readiness to step up to tackle threats to endangered species.

We need 300 more volunteers. If you haven't already signed up and are interested in helping get the word out about overpopulation, click here to be part of the Endangered Species Condom Project. The last day to sign up is Monday, February 1.

We've heard from college students, grandmothers, teachers, and clergymen who will help hand out the condoms at universities, music festivals, spiritual singles groups, and even a science and math teachers' conference. I hope you'll be part of this unique and important campaign to educate people about the devastating impacts of human overpopulation on endangered species.

Thank you,

Kierán Suckling Executive Director Center for Biological Diversity

P.S. If you want to learn more about the ways overpopulation hurts endangered species, visit our Web site for more details.

Save an Endangered Species

As someone who cares about wildlife and environmental health, I'm writing to strongly oppose the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to register Kaput-D for use in eradicating prairie dogs in ten states across the Great Plains. The Environmental Protection Agency should not approve Kaput-D, and should immediately rescind its May 2009 approval of Rozol, a similar poison used to kill prairie dogs. In addition to killing black-tailed prairie dogs -- themselves a candidate for federal protection -- these poisons will put other imperiled species at unacceptable risk in violation of the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Act and other federal laws.

I'm amazed that by using Kaput (note the slang term in this name) does not understand the significance of killing off an endangered specie or using poison to do so. It's obvious that by using poison to kill one living thing, will in turn poison other living things that come into contact with that poison.

Example being: when you poison a rat, and your dog then eats that rat...you dog dies of the poison as well... So poison contains a chain reaction..... when you poison bugs, you poison the food plant the bug was living on and in turn the poison passes into the ground and poisons not only the earth, but the water...and then we who eat that plant or drink the water become become poisoned, get sick and die.

Prairie dogs have declined by more than 95% from their historic numbers due to habitat loss, poisoning, shooting and non-native disease. And as a keystone species, their decline has had a negative effect on other prairie animals -- including black-footed ferrets, one of the rarest animals in the world. So it begs the question: why would the EPA even consider approving two new poisons that will help speed the decline of these already imperiled species?

Rozol and Kaput-D cause prairie dogs to slowly bleed to death (Jesus wept) -- a cruel and excruciating way to die. These chemicals also set off a chain reaction of secondary poisoning that can kill imperiled animals that are tied to prairie dogs on the food chain -- including black-footed ferrets, swift foxes, badgers, golden and bald eagles, burrowing owls and ferruginous hawks.

In September, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials requested that your agency consult with them before approving Rozol -- and to put Kaput-D on hold completely (and get these Actively Ignorant people who would use this out of office) -- because prairie dog poisoning had been shown to be a "major factor in the decline of [black-footed] ferrets" and because they had serious concerns about the effects these two poisons could have on other prairie wildlife.

But despite these requests, the EPA went ahead and approved the use of Rozol without properly consulting with federal wildlife experts and without giving the public a chance to weigh in on this deadly decision. And now the agency is poised to approve Kaput-D.

The Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to protect our environment and the wildlife we share it with. I hope the agency will rethink its decision to approve Rozol -- and reject the application to approve Kaput-D -- in order to avoid playing an active role in speeding the decline of several already imperiled species.

Save the Yellowstone Bison from Slaughter: May 7, 2009

Right now, newborn wild bison -- better known as buffalo -- are grazing under their mothers' watchful eyes on the lush Horse Butte peninsula near Yellowstone National Park in Montana.

But on May 15, this pastoral scene could turn ugly if the government begins hazing the buffalo back into the park with helicopters, horses and ATVs, as they did last year at this time.



If this operation proceeds, some buffalo could die, including young calves and pregnant cows.

Please speak out immediately to stop the government's annual hazing operation.

This wildlife tragedy replays almost every year on Horse Butte -- a birthing ground for the buffalo.



First, a helicopter invades the stillness, circling low to scare wild buffalo out of the woods, so that government agents on ATVs and horses can chase them back to Yellowstone.

With no time to rest or nurse during this relentless chase, some calves collapse and even die of exhaustion before ever reaching their grazing grounds deep within the park.

The saddest part? This senseless tragedy is unnecessary. The justification for hazing and killing buffalo is that they could spread the disease brucellosis to domestic cattle. That is why buffalo are generally not welcome outside Yellowstone Park in Montana -- and why thousands have been slaughtered or hazed back into the park in recent years.

But the fact is, there has never been a documented case of brucellosis transmission from buffalo to cattle in the wild.

More to the point, there are no cattle at all on Horse Butte, so there is absolutely no reason to haze and endanger Yellowstone's wild buffalo.



So please, help us give newborn buffalo a better chance at survival this spring.

Tell the Secretary of Agriculture to intervene right away and prevent the hazing of wild buffalo in the weeks ahead.

As living links to the great herds that once thundered across America's plains, Yellowstone's buffalo are a national treasure. Please join me in urging our government to protect them -- instead of subjecting them to needless suffering.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

More Wildlife Wins: January 24, 2009

No. 444, January 22, 2009 Obama Halts Attack on Gray Wolves, Other Bush Misdeeds Center Fights Bush-era Interference Harming 19 Species in Nine States Feds to Revisit Protections for Southern California Fish Suit Forces Agencies to Address Warming's Impacts on Species Lawsuit Filed Over Habitat Protections for Endangered Caribou Groups Defend Oregon Streams and Forests From Bush Attack Center Warns Agency to Heed Warming-threatened Seabird Get Fish Smart With "FishPhone" -- and Take Action for Oceans

Give a gift to nature and support the Center's work. Tell your friends about the Center's e-mail newsletter! Click here. If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Endangered Earth.

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Obama Halts Attack on Gray Wolves, Other Bush Misdeeds

Swooping into office to save the species this week, President Obama started his administration off right by immediately announcing a freeze on publication of all the Bush administration's last-minute, biodiversity-harming rules not yet put into print. This means the new administration will get a chance to review -- and hopefully trash -- bad Bush-era policy decisions, including the heinous removal of Endangered Species Act protections from gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains and Great Lakes regions. The freeze will also put stop to Bush's laughably low fuel-economy standards and a rule that would have injuriously changed the format of the endangered species list to redefine the extent of coverage provided to endangered species.

Unfortunately, President Obama's move can't undo the worst of the Bush administration's latest environmentally detrimental actions: the changes to the rules implementing the Endangered Species Act -- eviscerating our country's most important wildlife protection law -- and the relaxation of rules restricting mountaintop removal mining. Reversing those will take a little more work, but the Center for Biological Diversity will work to see it done.

Read more on Obama's freeze in the Guardian UK and learn what it could mean for wolves in the Idaho Statesman.

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Center Fights Bush-era Interference Harming 19 Species in Nine States

Filing a final challenge to the Bush administration over its political meddling in almost 60 Endangered Species Act decisions, last Wednesday the Center for Biological Diversity filed seven lawsuits over habitat-protection decisions wronging 18 species, as well as one notice of intent to sue over the denial of protection to the Colorado River cutthroat trout. The San Bernardino kangaroo rat, Arkansas River shiner, Riverside fairy shrimp, 12 Texas invertebrates, and three California plants were all robbed of federal habitat protections on Bush's watch -- in the case of the Riverside fairy shrimp, more than 97 percent of the area of habitat deemed by scientists as "essential" was removed from protection thanks to interference by Bush administration officials. In all, more than 158,000 protected acres are at stake in last week's seven suits. The Colorado River cutthroat trout was denied protection despite severe range loss, ongoing threats, and repeated Center action.

The Bush administration's mismanagement of the Endangered Species Act, now under extensive federal investigation, is the focus of the Center's Litigating Political Corruption campaign, through which we've already had substantial success in fighting to restore proper protections to 59 imperiled species.

Read more in the Desert Sun.

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Feds to Revisit Protections for Southern California Fish

Acknowledging the fishiness of one more of its scientifically flawed and politically tainted Bush-era Endangered Species Act decisions, last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached a settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity and allies over a rule slashing habitat protections for one of California's rarest freshwater swimmers, the Santa Ana sucker. The small-bodied, big-lipped fish, though highly adaptable, has suffered serious harm from development, water projects, and other threats and is now reduced to just three populations in the middle part of the Santa Ana River. In response to a Center lawsuit, in 2004 the Fish and Wildlife Service protected more than 21,000 acres of habitat along three of the fish's four home rivers -- only to issue a scientifically unjustifiable decision a year later to reduce the protected area to a measly 8,305 acres, eliminating protections from the sucker's namesake river, the Santa Ana.

Our latest lawsuit for the Santa Ana sucker -- filed in November 2007 with Cal Trout, the California-Nevada Chapter of the American Fisheries Society, and Friends of the River -- is another part of our Litigating Political Corruption campaign. Hopefully, all 59 species we're fighting for will get the attention they deserve under the new administration.

Check out our press release and learn more about the Santa Ana sucker.

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Suit Forces Agencies to Address Warming's Impacts on Species

Following almost two years of being ignored by the Bush administration after we petitioned for nationwide laws to protect species from global warming, the Center for Biological Diversity has filed suit against six federal agencies to compel a response to our action. In February 2007, we jumpstarted our Global Warming and Endangered Species Initiative by petitioning the Department of the Interior, Department of Commerce, Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, Department of Transportation, and Environmental Protection Agency to integrate opposition to global warming into all major federal decision-making processes and speed the recovery of endangered species from the American pika to the yellow-billed loon. Our suit, filed last Thursday, demands consideration of the requests of our petition, including reviewing species to spot those especially threatened by warming and prohibiting all federal actions from appreciably reducing the likelihood of a species' recovery.

"Integrating global warming considerations into all levels of government is the challenge of our times," declared Center senior counsel Bill Snape. "Yet the Bush administration not only refused to provide direction on climate change policy, it prevented agencies from doing so."

Get more from Law360.com.

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Lawsuit Filed Over Habitat Protections for Endangered Caribou

To protect one of the most majestic and endangered mammals on hooves, last Thursday the Center for Biological Diversity joined the Lands Council, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Selkirk Conservation alliance in suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to gain federally protected habitat for mountain caribou. Though caribou once roamed by the thousands across the northern United States, hunting, poaching, logging, and roads pushed the entire population into the Selkirk Mountains of northeastern Washington, northern Idaho, and British Columbia. Now disturbance from poorly managed snowmobiling threatens to push caribou out of even this last refuge. Conservation groups filed a petition to protect the caribou's remaining habitat back in 2002, but the next year the Fish and Wildlife Service said it had higher priorities -- and went on to ignore the petition.

Caribou, the only member of the deer family in which both sexes grow antlers, are most vulnerable during the coldest months -- just when snowmobiles come out to play. They need vehicle-free habitat if they're to survive many more winters.

Read more in the Seattle Times.

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Groups Defend Oregon Streams and Forests From Bush Attack

After the Bush administration issued an 11th-hour decision to let the timber industry decimate public lands in western Oregon, the Center for Biological Diversity and 12 other conservation and fisheries organizations -- represented by Earthjustice -- filed suit in defense of salmon and old-growth forests. The Western Oregon Plan Revision allows current logging in the area to nearly quadruple, rezoning 2.6 million acres of federal public forests in Oregon tended by the Bureau of Land Management. The Bush administration timber giveaway ignores science clearly showing these dramatic increases in logging will pollute salmon spawning streams, destroy much of Oregon's old-growth forest, contribute to global warming, and seriously threaten winged residents like the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet.

Get more from Oregon Public Broadcasting.

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Center Warns Agency to Heed Warming-threatened Seabird

When the Bush administration was three months late responding to our petition to protect California's rare ashy storm petrel, last Wednesday the Center for Biological Diversity officially warned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service we'll sue if it fails to investigate the species' status. The small, smoke-gray seabird resides in the polluted, development-stressed waters near California's largest cities and is further threatened by offshore energy terminals, shipping, commercial fishing, and oil spills. Worsening matters, global warming is changing the marine ecosystem of the bird's home state, leaving warmer, less-abundant waters and causing ocean acidification that depletes the sea of the storm petrel's prey. In the past 20 years, the largest colony of ashy storm petrels decreased by 42 percent, prompting the World Conservation Union and BirdLife International to list the species as endangered. Still, the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to make its decision on our petition to protect the bird, due last October.

Get details in our press release and learn more about our work to save the ashy storm petrel.

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Get Fish Smart With "FishPhone" -- and Take Action for Oceans

Do you have fish guilt? That is, do you care about consuming sustainably but not know if the fish you're eating is good for ocean health or your own? Don't worry. Thanks to New York-based nonprofit Blue Ocean Institute, if you have a cell phone you can use what the group has dubbed "FishPhone." The next time you're in the supermarket or sushi bar and find yourself at sea regarding what fish to ingest, just send a text message reading "FISH," along with the kind of fish you're considering, to 30644. Instantly, you'll get a reply on how healthy your choice is for you and the planet. If your fish is fishy, it'll be red-flagged.


And here's a more action-packed way to aid our oceans: Tell the National Marine Fisheries Service to ban swordfish imports from countries that aren't up to par on their fishing practices. The agency hasn't been enforcing existing law, allowing the importation of fish caught through methods that kill thousands of marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds each year. The Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Project petitioned the feds to enforce the ban, and now the Fisheries Service wants to hear from you.


Learn more about FishPhone in Scientific American and take action by January 29th against unsustainable foreign fisheries here.

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Kierán Suckling Executive Director

360: Human Noise Drowns out Song of Whales: December 3, 2008

Human noise drowns out song of whales

Countries looking for ways to cut down on underwater sound pollution

updated 2:39 p.m. PT, Wed., Dec. 3, 2008

ROME - The songs that whales and dolphins use to communicate, orient themselves and find mates are being drowned out by human-made noises in the world's oceans, U.N. officials and environmental groups said Wednesday.

That sound pollution — including increased commercial shipping, seismic surveys and a new generation of military sonar — is not only confounding the mammals but also further threatening the survival of these endangered animals.

Studies show that these cetaceans, which once communicated over thousands of miles to forage and mate, are losing touch with each other, the experts said on the sidelines of a U.N. wildlife conference in Rome.

"Call it a cocktail-party effect," said Mark Simmonds, director of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, a Britain-based NGO. "You have to speak louder and louder until no one can hear each other anymore."

An indirect source of noise pollution may also be coming from climate change, which is altering the chemistry of the oceans and making sound travel farther through sea water, the experts said.

Representatives of more than 100 governments are gathered in Rome for a meeting of the U.N.-backed Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.

The agenda of the conference, which ends Friday, includes ways to increase protection for endangered species, including measures to mitigate underwater noise.

Beachings tied to noise?
Environmental groups also are increasingly finding cases of beached whales and dolphins that can be linked to sound pollution, Simmonds said.

Marine mammals are turning up on the world's beaches with tissue damage similar to that found in divers suffering from decompression sickness. The condition, known as the bends, causes gas bubbles to form in the bloodstream upon surfacing too quickly.

Scientists say the use of military sonar or seismic testing may have scared the animals into diving and surfacing beyond their physical limits, Simmonds said.

Several species of cetaceans are already listed as endangered or critically endangered from other causes, including hunting, chemical pollution, collisions with boats and entanglements with fishing equipment. Though it is not yet known precisely how many animals are affected, sound pollution is increasingly being recognized as a serious factor, the experts said.

As an example, Simmonds offered two incidents this year which, though still under study, could be linked to noise pollution: the beaching of more than 100 melon-headed whales in Madagascar and that of two dozen common dolphins on the southern British coast.

The sound of a seismic test, used to locate hydrocarbons beneath the seabed, can spread 1,800 miles under water, said Veronica Frank, an official with the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

A study by her group found that the blue whale, which used to communicate across entire oceans, has lost 90 percent of its range over the last 40 years.

Despite being the largest mammal ever to inhabit Earth, the endangered blue whale still holds mysteries for scientists.

"We don't even know where their breeding grounds are," Simmonds said. "But what's most important is that they need to know where they are."

'Strange and unwanted development'
Other research suggests that rising levels of carbon dioxide are increasing the acidity of the Earth's oceans, making sound travel farther through sea water.

Click for related content

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The study by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in the United States shows the changes may mean some sound frequencies are traveling 10 percent farther than a few centuries ago. That could increase to 70 percent by 2050 if greenhouse gases are not cut.

"This is a new, strange and unwanted development," Simmonds said. "It shows how the degradation of the environment is all linked."

However, governments seem ready to take action, said Nick Nutall, a spokesman for the U.N. Environment Program, which administers the convention being discussed in Rome. The conference is discussing a resolution that would oblige countries to reduce sound pollution, he said.

Measures suggested include rerouting shipping and installing quieter engines as well as cutting speed and banning tests and sonar use in areas known to be inhabited by the endangered animals.