The San Francisco federal court hearing was brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has succeeded in the past in forcing sonar testing concessions from the Navy, during court hearings in 2003 and 2005.
In the latest case, Judge Elizabeth Laporte accepted evidence that low-frequency sonar harms creatures' sonar-based detection systems, and ordered the Navy to recognise oceanic sonar-free zones beyond those already established off California and Hawaii.
The zones, she specified, should include areas around the Galapagos Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. Others are likely to make it on to the list, with clear co-ordinates to be confirmed by the Navy in agreement with the NRDC to reflect regions, such as breeding grounds, where sonar-orientated cetaceans are known to be present in high numbers. |
