Rallies are being held in the Hawaiian Islands on March 16th to raise awareness of the Navy’s two-year exemption to the Marine Mammal Protection Act and mark the anniversary of a whale and dolphin stranding that occurred in the Bahamas seven years ago.

This exemption allows the Navy to train with mid-frequency active sonar around the Hawaiian Islands, off the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary in Southern California, and elsewhere. Mid-frequency active sonar has been linked to mass strandings and the death of whales and dolphins around the world. On March 15 and 16, 2000, a multi-species, mass stranding of 17 cetaceans took place. There is evidence that at least seven of the animals died. At the time, there was ongoing naval activity involving ships equipped with mid-frequency sonars in the same geographic area where the strandings occurred. A preliminary joint report (there has never been a final report) by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Navy concluded that Navy training exercises including the use of tactical mid-frequency active sonar could have been the only source of the noise pollution that harmed or killed the stranded animals.

Rallies will take place on the islands of Kauai, Maui, and Oahu.