Yep.
Having your senses pulped into jelly by a blast of infrasound is bitch.. Still, least we can keep scaring off those damn ruskies.
The UK media is giving some big play to the unfortunate whale which has trapped itself on a beach in Suffolk. We can't normally spare cross-platform media operatives for tasks of this sort: but even so the Eye of the Vulture misses little, and in this case we have a picture from the scene. A sad day on the beach at Shingle …
It's a nice theory.
Unfortunately, while the use of Active Sonar[1] has pretty much gone the way of the Dodo, it's decline has made no difference to whale strandings.
[1] Active Sonar has an unfortunate side effect of also going "OUR SONAR INSTALLATIONS ARE HERE!!!" to anyone having a passing interest. All the clever detection stuff is done with Passive Sonar these days (listening very carefully with hugely sensitive microphones backed by clever analysis computers), which allows you to find out where everything else is without also telling them where you are.
Sadly it is not a theory. Anyone who says it is have obviously never even done the slightest bit of research. A basic google search reveals the facts in a depressingly straightforward way. My first post may at first seem absurd/perverse - but nevertheless that is the pathetic stand of the US supreme court.
In the UK things are worse - it is almost totally dismissed as naval warfare is even more critical to a small island nation.
Just last month 2 huge groups of apparently perfectly healthy whales all perished in mass beachings.. they were writhing round on the rocks in agony like small fry in a child's net. It's sickening.
Or maybe they all joined a suicide cult and went on a pilgrimage... o.0
Take it to wherever Her Majesty would like it put: "Over there will be fine. Mind the corgis".
No, really, the Receiver of Wrecks must be informed. Whales, porpoises and sturgeon are Royal Fish and when taken in the waters around the UK or when stranded become the property of the Crown, or of the Lord of the Manor, e.g. the Duke of Cornwall if the stranding is on the duchy coast.
They got beached, get beached and as long as they are living, will get beached.
Sonar IS a problem but really not THE problem. Regulation about when it is legal to use active sonar (distance from whales, etc) in peace conditions would solve most problems (it will still produce induce to cramps producing beahviour in some whales, etc).
The real problem is that oceans are way too noisy, polluted and have little food. And we could fix pollution up to some point, but not noise or food depletion, as we prefer to feed humans and not whales.
Tux, as he would also be starving..
Many whales go naturally to die to beaches.
As for powerful active sonar killing whales, well, it is a known fact. No doubt, etc.. except if you ask someone who needs it, of course.
As for passive/active sonar, nowadays most military sonars are passive.
BUT.
Side scan sonars are, by definition, active. They are widely used for such things as searching for sunken ships, reef/sea bottom mapping, searching for fish banks, etc.
Towed radar is incomparable. Sorry, but you might be saying "hello, here I am", and a task force just doesn't mind: the enemy knows their position, they just want to know where the enemy submarines are before they get attacked by torp tube launched missiles. It is needed.