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The U.S. Congress is currently engaged in a two-pronged attack against the
Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), one of our most important animal protection
laws. The House of Representatives’
version of a Department of Defense (DOD) authorization bill, currently pending
in a conference committee (where the House and Senate resolve differences in the
bill), would allow for broad exemptions from the law not only to the military
but to anyone else, including researchers, fishermen, and defense contractors.
DOD wants to change the MMPA definition of
“harassment” radically. Rather than referring to activities that injure,
torment, or disrupt marine mammals’ behavior, the change would mean that only
activities causing “biologically significant disruption” would be curtailed.
This level of substantiation is very difficult to ascertain, and switches the
burden of proof to the government, which would need to show that the disruption
was “biologically significant” before protecting marine mammals.
Another recommended change would eviscerate the
MMPA further by removing the two primary limitations on the granting of
“incidental take” permits: the requirement that the take be geographically
limited and that the numbers of creatures affected be small. This would enable
the Navy, or any other permit applicant, to kill or injure huge numbers of
marine mammals across the oceans with impunity. This one change in language
would virtually destroy the ability of the MMPA to protect marine mammals from
being harmed or killed incidentally in fisheries, scientific research, and the
deployment of devices such as active sonar and air-guns. Some of the impetus for
these proposed changes stem from the Navy’s desire to deploy its Low Frequency
Active sonar over 80% of the world’s oceans, potentially slaughtering broad
swaths of whales, dolphins and fish with its ear-shattering 234 decibels.
Meanwhile, a bill to reauthorize the MMPA
itself (H.R. 2693) has been introduced by the Chairman of the House Resources
Committee, Richard Pombo (R-CA) and the Chairman of the Committee’s Fisheries
Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans Subcommittee, Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD).
This bill also would amend the MMPA by changing the definition of harassment and
weakening the restrictions concerning the “incidental taking” of marine mammals.
Members of Congress should see through these
underhanded attempts to weaken protection for marine mammals. Urge your
legislators to reject the DOD’s unnecessary requests for exemptions from the
MMPA and to oppose the Gilchrest/Pombo bill as currently drafted. (Click here for addresses to Congress.)
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