Nathan LaBudde

The U.S. Navy has been using low-frequency, high-decibel sonar to track hard-to-detect submarines despite the fact that these transmissions threaten to disrupt the acoustic abilities on which marine mammals depend, claims Nathan LaBudde in the following viewpoint. According to LaBudde, when the Navy conducted an environmental impact assessment on the Surveillance Towed Array Sonar System, Low Frequency Active (LFA), gray whales in the vicinity of the testing changed their migration pattern, and humpback whales stopped singing. Moreover, the sonar appeared to disorient mothers and calves, resulting in their separation. LaBudde argues that the Navy sees these as negligible short-term effects when they may in fact prove harmful in the long term. LaBudde is an environmentalist with the Earth Island Institute.

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1. What example does LaBudde provide...