Fears for whales in war zone
The Talisman Sabre war games involving 20,000 United States and 10,000 Australian troops have started live-firing exercises at Shoalwater Bay, just north of Rockhampton, Queensland, Austalia. The area is visited by migrating whales as well as being home to dugongs, dolphins, turtles and other marine life.
Professor Peter Harrison of Southern Cross University's Whale Research Centre said records showed humpback whales had been recorded in the vicinity of Shoalwater Bay and less than two weeks ago, the rare albino humpback dubbed Migaloo was spotted at the Gold Coast, heading north. Migaloo the famous white humpback whale and hundreds of more whales could arrive in the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area any time now. Parts of the training area, covering 454,500 hectares of land and water, are within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The management of the Defence areas in those waters are managed primarily under federal Great Barrier Reef Marine Park legislation, not by Queensland state marine parks.
White whales like Migaloo have been granted `special interest' status in Queensland waters which means no one can bring a boat or power-ski closer than 500 metres or fly an aircraft closer than 2000 feet to the whale without written permission. The distance for other whales is 100 metres for a boat and 300 metres for power-skis and other personal watercraft. Therefore, why are these live-firing exercises being allowed to go ahead?
They are held every two years, include live firing of ammunition and explosives, amphibious assaults and parachuting.
So far there has been no record of death or injury to whales or other marine creatures as a result of live-fire activities at the previous two exercises. Exercise Talisman Sabre is one of Australia's largest multilateral military training exercises. There were a number of protests against the exercise in 2007 and protests have started in the area about the current exercises.
