\u201cIf whales are getting hammered by sonar and it\u2019s during an important breeding or feeding season, it could ultimately affect their ability to have enough energy to feed their young or find food,\u201d said Kylie Wager Cruz<\/a>, a senior attorney with the environmental legal advocacy nonprofit Earthjustice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a major lack of consideration,\u201d she added,\u201d of how those types of behavioral impacts could ultimately have a greater impact beyond just vessel strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n The Navy, Cruz said, didn\u2019t consider how its training exercises add to the harm caused by other factors, most notably collisions with major shipping vessels that kill dozens of endangered whales in the eastern Pacific each year.\u00a0Environmental law requires the Navy to do that, she said, but \u201cthey\u2019re only looking at their own take,\u201d or harm.<\/p>\n The Navy, in a statement earlier this month, said it \u201ccommitted to the maximum level of mitigation measures\u201d that it practically could to curb environmental damage while maintaining its military readiness in the years ahead. The plan also covers some Coast Guard operations.<\/p>\n Federal fishery officials recently approved the plan, granting the Navy the necessary exemptions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to proceed despite the harms. It\u2019s at least the third time that the Navy has had to complete an environmental impact report and seek those exemptions to test and train off Hawai\u02bbi and California.<\/p>\n Limited Protections<\/p>\n The report covers the impacts to some 39 marine mammal species<\/a>, including eight that are endangered, plus a host of other birds, turtles and other species that inhabit those waters.<\/p>\n The Navy says it will limit use of some of its most intense sonar equipment in designated \u201cmitigation areas\u201d around Hawai\u02bbi island and Maui Nui to better protect humpback whales and other species from exposure.<\/p>\n Specifically, it says it won\u2019t use its more intense ship-mounted sonar in those areas during the whales\u2019 Nov. 15 to April 15 breeding system, and it won\u2019t use those systems there for more than 300 hours a year.<\/p>\n However, outside of those mitigation zones the Navy report lists 11 additional areas that are biologically important to other marine mammals species, including spinner and bottle-nosed dolphins, false killer whales, short-finned pilot whales and dwarf sperm whales.<\/p>\n Those biologically important areas encompass all the waters around the main Hawaiian islands, and based on the Navy\u2019s report they won\u2019t benefit from the same sonar limits.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the Hawai\u02bbi bottle-nosed dolphins, the Navy estimates its acoustic and explosives exercises will disrupt that species\u2019 feeding, breeding and other behaviors more than 310,000 times, plus muffle their hearing nearly 39,000 times and cause as many as three deaths<\/a>. The report says the other species will see similar disruptions.<\/p>\n Pump The Brakes?<\/p>\n Exactly how the Navy\u2019s numbers compare to previous cycles are difficult to say, Wager Cruz and others said, because the ocean area and total years covered by each report have changed.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, the instances in which its Pacific training might harm or kill a marine mammal appear to be climbing.<\/p>\n In 2018, for instance, a press release from the nonprofit Center For Biological Diversity stated that the Navy\u2019s Pacific training in Hawai\u02bbi and Southern California would harm marine mammals an estimated 12.5 million times<\/a> over a five-year period.<\/p>\n This month, the center put out a similar release stating that the Navy\u2019s training would harm marine mammals across Hawai\u02bbi plus Northern and Southern California an estimated 35 million times over a seven-year period.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s large swaths of area that don\u2019t get any mitigation,\u201d Wager Cruz said. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re asking for, like, everywhere is a prohibited area by any means, but I think that the military should take a harder look and see if they can do more.\u201d<\/p>\n The Navy should also consider slowing its vessels to 10 knots during training exercises to help avoid the collisions that often kill endangered whales off the California Coast, Cruz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/whale57-1-1024x661.jpg\")
An estimated 10,000 to 12,000 humpbacks travel to Hawai\u02bbi waters to breed, give birth and nurse their young each year. (Marina Riker\/Civil Beat\/2023\/NOAA Permit No. 19655)<\/p>\n
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