Underwater Sonar Linked To Whale Deaths

An anonymous reader writes "A group of scientists have confirmed a link between the sonar used by Exxon Mobil to map the ocean floor for oil and the death of melon-headed whales. From the article: 'A spokesman for ExxonMobil said the company disagrees with the findings. "ExxonMobil believes the panel's finding about the multi-beam echo sounder is unjustified due to the lack of certainty of information and observations recorded during the response efforts in 2008," spokesman Patrick McGinn told AFP in an email. He added that observers employed by the Madagascar government and the oil giant "were on board the vessel and did not observe any whales in the area."'"

Comments

That's it

[jfdavis668]

We can only use overwater sonar from now on.

Re:That's it

[phantomfive]

It didn't destroy anything. From what I understand of the article, it scared them into shallow waters where they beached themselves and died.

The reason for the doubt is that melon-headed whales beach themselves anyway with surprising frequency.

Re:That's it

[geogob]

The reason for the doubt is that melon-headed whales beach themselves anyway with surprising frequency.

The interesting question is, how can you tell this surprisingly high frequency ist not due to sonars?

Re:That's it

[phantomfive]

There's no mention of damaged hearing organs in the article. The article is poorly written, but here is a relevant quote:

The five-member independent scientific review panel said the vessel's MBES was "the most plausible and likely behavioral trigger for the animals initially entering the lagoon system."

There have been reports of damaged hearing organs in other cases, so you are probably thinking about news that you read about Florida. In this case, the article has no mention of ear damage.

Re:That's it

[girlintraining]

There's no mention of damaged hearing organs in the article.

If I expose you to infrasonic tones, something proven to cause anxiety and stress in people, over a period of time, and then you later commit suicide, an autopsy will not find anything wrong with your ears. Nonetheless, that's what killed you. Now it doesn't work on everyone, and it works to varying degrees on the people it does effect, but searching for physical signs of trauma isn't always the best way of determining a cause of death; An autopsy is only one component in a murder investigation. You still have to investigate their environment, question eyewitnesses, and gather additional information.

It's not that much different, from a methodology standpoint, investigating the death of whales. A lack of damaged hearing organs doesn't mean it wasn't the proximate cause of death.

Re:That's it

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

That's because the n-word has strong historic links to black people being beaten, lynched, enslaved, regarded subhuman & treated like animals (not allowed to drink from the same fountain, eat in the same restrooms, etc.) -- and white people that use or used the term are conveying that they figure that those abuses were at least somewhat justified.

The word "honky" is effectively just another mean word to call someone, as it only really refers to a subgroup of whites (not the race as a whole), and doesn't have the same history or suggest that we should be treated that way. All of the historically nasty terms for white people target nationalities, were made up by other whites, and stopped being genuinely offensive long ago. Even then, they just suggested that the new immigrants were genetically inferior, not that they should be treated like blacks were.

Re:That's it

[dargaud]

We can only use overwater sonar from now on.

It's called a Sodar, and I've written software for them.

Cognitive Errors, Courtesy Exxon

[girlintraining]

"ExxonMobil believes the panel's finding about the multi-beam echo sounder is unjustified due to the lack of certainty of information and observations recorded during the response efforts in 2008," spokesman Patrick McGinn told AFP in an email. He added that observers employed by the Madagascar government and the oil giant "were on board the vessel and did not observe any whales in the area."'"

Certainty of information: Nobody requires absolute certainty in science. In fact, even the court system, sad as it is, needs it -- it requires "beyond reasonable doubt", whereas science is similarily situated at "best model that fits the facts". Type of cognitive distortion ExxonMobile uses here: All-or-nothing thinking.

Out of date observations: It's 2013 now. By carefully hand picking your data set to be only, say, 2008, or pre-2008, you are discounting everything that came after. One supposes that an extra five years' worth of observations, we'd be able to narrow in on a cause. But let's humor them and take just 2008. In February of that year, before the incident in question, the US courts found there was enough evidence that high energy sonar was killing whales to ask the military to reduce its use in naval operations.

Impartial observers: Let me sum this one up real easy -- "Managment finds no problem with the management." The government was paid a lot of money to go along with Exxon, and employees of Exxon I think we can safely say aren't impartial observers. So one of the most basic things required for proper fact gathering went right out the window. This is, in effect, an admission that ExxonMobile has no valid data points from which to draw any conclusions whatsoever. It is, from a scientific perspective, pure speculation. "We're not wrong because, er, we saw ourselves doing nothing wrong." Okay... what about everyone else? "We didn't ask them."

Re:Cognitive Errors, Courtesy Exxon

[girlintraining]

P.S. The lack of whales being observed in the area might be attributable to all the observers being in a boat, above the ocean, rather than in the ocean, where the whales live. And regardless, the piles of dead whales that started washing up on shore is a good indication that whatever methodology used was deeply flawed... Perhaps they were simply listening for the whales in between their exceptionally high power sonar tests... that may have already killed or incapacitated them.

So again, this is "cover my ass" commentary, not proper science. Proper science would note that corpses washed ashore in great number after, and conclude using indirect evidence, that observational methodology was flawed, then try to figure out why... not keep doing it for the next six years while continually saying ghosts and boogymen killed and then dragged the dead whales onto shore in the night, because otherwise wouldn't we have noticed them prior to us corpsifying them?

Re:Cognitive Errors, Courtesy Exxon

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to be clear, you are saying this entire section is wrong?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_sounding#Hydrography

Although I couldn't find anything definitive on the hearing ranges for this type of whale, it is reasonable that that can hear up to 50 or 60 kHx:

http://www.hmmc.org/MarMammSpp/Peponcephala/Peponcephala.html

Beluga whales can hear double that at the high end, and both are well within the range for some of the lower frequencies used for multibeam sounders.

Re:Cognitive Errors, Courtesy Exxon

[pupsocket]

From the article: "The culprit was named as a high-power 12 kilohertz multibeam echosounder system, or MBES, operated by an ExxonMobil vessel on May 29 about 65 kilometers offshore from the first known stranding......The sounds would have been 'clearly audible over many hundreds of square kilometers of melon headed whale deep water habitat areas.'"

Re:Cognitive Errors, Courtesy Exxon

[girlintraining]

Look, as somebody who actually works in this industry

... And whose identity is "Anonymous"

, multibeam sounders operate on very high frequencies, way over what whales can perceive.

And yet, I can take away your hearing by emitting ultrasound if it's powerful enough. You won't hear yourself going deaf, you'll just go deaf. Actually, I can even kill you with exposure of 180dB of ultrasound. But, working (anonymously) in the industry, you'd know that frequency is only part of the equation.

What's hilarious here is that the Slashdot circle-jerkers are already screaming EXXON...BAAAAD!

Statements like these definately add to your credibility. By making juvenile sexual jokes, it's immediately obvious to everyone that this is a man who makes six figures in the field of Oceanography.

But do you know what kind of sonar does make whales' ears bleed?

Yes: The very loud kind. Just like any other animal's ears. In fact, whale's ears are more suseptible to damage due to high decibel emissions than humans because in the human ear, air waves hit a membrane behind which there is a liquid-filled area, thus the energy of the wave can be dissipated; Pressure waves travelling through air are much less powerful than underwater, because of the density of the medium. Whales, unfortunately, have inner ears filled with the same liquid is its surrounding environment, and at the same pressure... meaning there is no transitive barrier to protect them.

The big fucking' spherical and cylindrical arrays you find in the tips of the bulbous dicks of ships and submarines.

Well, without knowing which ship was involved in a 6 year old incident, it's impossible to know whether any phallic-shaped devices were mounted to the ship. However, while lacking your literary ability in the many uses of the word 'fuck', an independent science team, perhaps with less impressive credentials than yours, found the ships' activities were the likely cause of the sudden displacement and eventual death of the whales. Oh, and the names of the members of that scientific team were the International Whaling Commission, the US Marine Mammal Commission, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production (Northern Madagascar) Ltd, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Government of Madagascar. They all think you're full of crap, but what would over a hundred scientists know compared to someone who swears like a sailor anonymously on slashdot?

Have you even seen a fucking multibeam? The transducer array is roughly the size of a shoebox.

You must have very big feet then. That's a picture of the NOAA's multibeam echosounder, an ER60. It is a low-power model, and in this case is being used to track the migratory movements of fish, and is of limited range. The kind that several sources have indicated were used by ExxonMobile inject high pressure air into the water; These are considerably larger, and more powerful, than these systems, which modulate a diaphram. It's the difference between your laptop's speakers, and a pneumatically-driven organ like those seen at older churches. Needless to say, the organ is much louder.

Idiots. I'm surrounded by goddamn idiots!

Yeah... I know this feeling well. Look at how often I get downmodded for providing factual and relevant commentary, instead of simp

Exxon Mobile's new mission statement

[djupedal]

"We're no worse than anyone else and you can't prove otherwise"

Re:Exxon Mobile's new mission statement

[girlintraining]

"We're no worse than anyone else and you can't prove otherwise"

It is perhaps fortunate then that we use different standards of evidence in the courts and in science than self-rating one's behavior. Because if we did that, we'd all be above average drivers. It's always the other guy's fault.

Exxon's Response

[Anonymous Coward]

"ExxonMobil believes the panel's finding about the multi-beam echo sounder is unjustified due to the lack of certainty of information and observations recorded during the response efforts in 2008"

This is a perfect example of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). Well done legal team!

Re:Exxon's Response

[GameboyRMH]

Is this real or a joke? I'm looking forward to finding out how simple of a cause-effect relationship can be denied. This is basically the equivalent of finding that the neighbor's eardrums were blown out due to you setting off explosions in your back yard, so it's pretty straightforward.

Re:Exxon's Response

[hazem]

Except there's a solid causal mechanism in play here. Whales are known to have particularly sensitive sound-receiving organs that also also known to be sensitive to extremely loud sounds like explosions and sonar. And it just so happens that someone was using a highly focused sonar in the time and space these whales turned up dead.

By your logic, a guy going into an auditorium and shooting a bunch of bullets isn't necessarily the cause of all the people found dead there with bullet-holes in them. There's just not a cause and effect relationship... sure, it's a plausible explanation, but that's far from being 'cause and effect'.

Re:Exxon's Response

[LynnwoodRooster]

Not even close. Blue whales alone generate pressure levels around the same level as modern SONAR systems, and the pressures generated from propeller cavitation can easily exceed that of SONAR. And yes, I was a SONAR engineer.

Re:Exxon's Response

[Gwarsbane]

There are very low and high sound frequencies that humans can not hear, but yet we can be affected by them.

Re:Exxon's Response

[Anonymous Coward]

same ac here. you sound like a navy guy so some further explaination since you're in a position to understand it: air guns work much like a depth charge or cavitation. it's the shockwave from the collapse of the compressed air bubble which is what does all the damage. and large arrays of airguns are the tool of choice for these surveys.

Re:Exxon's Response

[madsci1016]

Correct, oil surveys are not performed using the same electro-transducer SONAR you find on Subs, they use high pressure air gun arrays which are an order of magnitude louder than SONAR. I've stood near a single air gun transducer fire on its lowest pressure setting and it was disturbing. I'm not surprised there could be a link.

Disgusted at humans :-(

[MrL0G1C]

If some enlightened alien race came to earth and wiped us out after having looked at the atrocious way we treat other humans and all life on this planet, I'd understand. We don't deserve to live here.

Re:Disgusted at humans :-(

[Kohath]

Why are these hypothetical aliens always so judgmental and intolerant? What did they ever do for anyone? They have the energy to get here from other planets, but they've left us here, alone, digging in the sand for something to burn to keep from freezing in the winter. And now they want to sit on their thrones and second-guess our choices? Fuck them.

Re:Disgusted at humans :-(

[niftydude]

In the past the whales had been able to sing to each other across whole oceans, even from one ocean to another because sound travels such huge distances underwater. But now, again because of the way in which sound travels, there is no part of the ocean that is not constantly jangling with the hubbub of ships’ motors, through which it is now virtually impossible for the whales to hear each other’s songs or messages.

So fucking what, is pretty much the way that people tend to view this problem, and understandably so, thought Dirk. After all, who wants to hear a bunch of fat fish, oh all right, mammals, burping at each other?

But for a moment Dirk had a sense of infinite loss and sadness that somewhere amongst the frenzy of information noise that daily rattled the lives of men he thought he might have heard a few notes that denoted the movements of gods.

Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, 1988

Re:Anti-oil propaganda

[MrL0G1C]

We know that Wind Energy is responsible for the deaths of lots of protected birds.

Wrong.

http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/wind-turbine-kill-birds.htm

No! Not At All.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the actual report, you'll see these statements:

"There is no uneqiovocal and easily identifiable single cause of this event,"

"This is the first known such marine mammal mass stranding event closely associated with relatively high-frequency mapping sonar systems,"

"MBES systems (similar) to the 12 kHz source used in this case are in fact commonly used in hydrographic surveys around the world over large areas without such events being previously documented."

"There may well be a very low probability that the operation of such sources will induce marine mammal strandings,"

Regardless of the case...

[Anonymous Coward]

who in their right mind would believe an oil company? Out of all the sociopathic entities known as corporations, oil companies are the lying, destructive ringleaders.

Re:Already knew this.

[Rising Ape]

They use "air guns" or something to map underwater oil deposits. Basically make an extremely loud noise and listen for it to bounce back from *beneath* the bottom of the ocean. That's got to deafen the shit out of whales and all the other creatures in the ocean.

Indeed they do, but it's standard practice to "soft start", i.e. start with low intensity pulses and gradually increase in order to give marine mammals chance to keep enough distance. Also there are observers on the ships to look out for any creatures that might be affected and stop if necessary.

Re:From the same scientist

[GameboyRMH]

Pretty much all of them do...looks like you'll have to become a voodoo witch-doctor. And avoid any of the natural cures they used that modern scientists have found to actually work.

Exxon asked the whales...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exxon asked a representative of the whales to come in for an interview and fill out a form detailing the effects --if any-- that the sonar had on their habitat and ecosystem. Exxon even sent out a 30 day compliance notice. Not one, --NOT ONE-- whale even bothered to show up for the information seminars. Clearly the whales are either not concerned, or are going about doing one of those 'Environmental Protests' that you hear about. Exxon gave the whales a chance, and they missed it, so now Exxon can do whatever they want. Oh, and science schmiance. Those whale scientists don't know anything about whales either, nor do they know anything about oil.

We saw none, therefore we did not drive them away.

[pupsocket]

Exxon-Mobil's argument that saw no whales only fortifies the suspicion that they were driving the whales away.

Re:Of course there were no whales nearby

[Solandri]

1. "120 decibels" is meaningless. Sound waves vary with the type of medium, and attenuates with distance. dB are always measured with respect to a certain pressure and distance, usually 1 uPa and 1 meter from the sound source. Further than that, the dB will be lower (-40 dB at 100 meters).

2. A typical sonar will be about 180-200 dB re 1 uPa 1 m, with the powerful one the US Navy was using being about 226 dB. That isn't because the sound is louder (measured as how much your eardrum moves). It's because water is a denser medium than air, and thus requires more energy to create a wave of the same pressure as in air. The sonar the whales themselves emit is about 170-190 dB re 1 uPa 1 m, with peaks exceeding 220 dB .

3. Dead whales float. The same bacteria which decompose human bodies and make them float do the same in whales. In a body as large as a whale, the buildup of these gases can be so great it causes the corpse to explode. It will eventually sink, but usually only after scavengers like sharks have stripped away most of the low-density tissue, leaving mostly high-density bones.

Some reference

[Solandri]

Most people have no grounds of reference for sound underwater, which can mislead one to wayward conclusions. dB in water is not the same as dB in air. dB is always given relative to a reference pressure and distance, usually re 1 uPa 1 meter. The higher density of water means an equivalent sound volume (in terms of loudness, or amplitude) will have a much higher dB in water.

Typical sonars are about 160-200 dB re 1 uPa 1 m. The US Navy sonar which caused all the controversy years ago was 226 dB if I remember right. Yes these are loud, but remember it's measured at 1 meter. At 100 meters, it will have attenuated by -40 dB.

Yes those are loud, but I'm a little skeptical of all these claims of sonar harming whales because as most of you know, whales and dolphins use sonar themselves. It's typically 170-190 dB re 1 uPa 1m, with peaks over 220 dB. They're at different frequencies though (100+ kHz for dolphins, 10-25 kHz for most depth finders, 3 kHz for the Navy sonar), and higher frequencies attenuate more quickly in the water.

Re:Anti-oil propaganda

[Jeremy Erwin]

The issue is not whether an individual member of the species is harmed, but instead whether the species as a whole is driven to extinction. Killing Deer? Fine by me. Killing Rhinos? Serious problem.

Re:We saw none, therefore we did not drive them aw

[girlintraining]

Exxon-Mobil's argument that saw no whales only fortifies the suspicion that they were driving the whales away.

Dude, stop using basic deductive reasoning. It'll get you into trouble on this website. Judging by the moderation on this thread, you need to swear more, use exclaimation points, and call everyone a moron -- this is apparently how you win arguments now.

Seems pretty clear

[Gothmolly]

Whales weren't dying with hemorrages in their ears/heads before the new fangled sonar came out - and now they are.

Re:Anti-oil propaganda

[JaredOfEuropa]

Wind generators kill rhinos?

Melon-headed whales

[malacandrian]

A group of scientists have confirmed a link between the sonar, used by Exxon Mobil to map the ocean floor for oil, and the death of melon-headed whales.

The whales are already having a tough time of it, what with the dying. There's no need to insult them as well.

Re:Sorry, but you are wrong...

[MrL0G1C]

There are now approx' 200,000 bald eagles.

"Only nine bald eagle collisions with turbine blades have been recorded nationally" Ever?

So, what is your point?

"Of 1,428 individuals from across the range necropsied by National Wildlife Health Center from 1963 to 1984, 329 (23%) eagles died from trauma, primarily impact with wires and vehicles; 309 (22%) died from gunshot; 158 (11%) died from poisoning; 130 (9%) died from electrocution; 68 (5%) died from trapping; 110 (8%) from emaciation; and 31 (2%) from disease; cause of death was undetermined in 293 (20%) of cases."

Windmills are the least of their problems.

Man-made structure/technology Associated bird deaths per year (U.S.) :-
Feral and domestic cats : Hundreds of millions [source: AWEA]
Power lines : 130 million -- 174 million [source: AWEA]
Windows (residential and commercial) : 100 million -- 1 billion [source: TreeHugger]
Pesticides : 70 million [source: AWEA]
Automobiles : 60 million -- 80 million [source: AWEA]
Lighted communication towers : 40 million -- 50 million [source: AWEA]
Wind turbines : 10,000 -- 40,000 [source: ABC]

surprised ?

[Tom]

A spokesman for ExxonMobil said the company disagrees with the findings.

When is the last time you heard a corporation agree with any kind of information that threatens its profits? Did it ever happen? Is there a recorded case in the history of mankind of a corporation agreeing with some kind of new information without having to be pressured into doing so?

Re:Pause Before Pitchforks and Torches

[sjames]

So renaming shouldn't be a problem. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

Re:We saw none, therefore we did not drive them aw

[pupsocket]

Thanks from a fellow moron for the #*&@ing tip!

Re:Cognitive Errors, Courtesy girlintraining

[Bite The Pillow]

Certainty of information: Nobody requires absolute certainty in science.

Exxon is not requiring absolute certainty. I don't see a reviewed paper anywhere, just a report that says Exxon was "the most plausible and likely behavioral trigger". That is far from certainty. The court system is irrelevant, no sense talking about that since 1) I don't know the legal requirements of Madagascar, where the whales got beached and 2) there is no court case.

You are guilty of the "all or nothing" here, not Exxon.

Out of date observations

This was a report on a particular set of events that happened in 2008. There is no data past 2008 on those events. The report did not investigate data outside of those events.

I can't tell based on your link if it is discussing the same 12 kilohertz multibeam echosounder system, since it just says "sonar blasts". The article also does not say whether sonar blasts by the US military could be responsible for whale behavior lagoons in Madagascar based on Exxon's technology, which was the point of this research. Following the related links, I see only references to "235 decibels" and "sonar", so there is no certain relevance

Not saying they are different, I'm just saying that there is not enough information to conclude, even with uncertainty, that these are remotely the same technology.

If you want to deal with impartiality, you didn't mention that this report was done by the International Whaling Commission. It's hard to whale when your product ends up as the equivalent of roadkill. When a whale beaches itself, it may be illness, even if you can get there before rot starts. Are they impartial? We also have a quote from "the advocacy group Oceana." Advocacy groups have an agenda, so you can disregard that. And look who compiled the evidence - lots of room for bias all over the place.

But, if we go with your conspiracy theory, then Exxon is vindicated in its lack of certainty of observations (or if you want to read it this way, lack of observations).

For the record, what little news I remember of similar incidents makes me think the report is a reasonable explanation. That makes it "the best model that fits" because it's the only model I know of, hence the only model that fits. I see no other statistics on how often whales get stranded there. "Highly unusual" is very different from "unprecedented", meaning it has happened before. If Exxon was not the cause for a separate event, the what is? Not having an answer to that is the doubt that keeps me from going with my gut instinct to agree completely.

As a shipboard oceanographic technician...

[n1ywb]

I spent three years sailing on the Scripps Institution of Oceanography research vessels, mostly the Revelle, and the Melville. One of my primary responsibilities was operating the multibeam sonar and other acoustic instruments. Working on ship is interesting, it's sort of like college, where you live in one small floating building housing the dorms, labs, cafeteria, and plant, with 40 people, except you cannot leave the building for 50 days at a stretch. It's like being on a reality show living and working with scientists of all types, and some other colorful characters.

None of the 50 or so marine biologists that I ever sailed with ever had the slightest concern about the multibeam's impact on marine life. And belive me they were very interested in sonar's effects on marine mammals. Anytime we would perform SEISMIC survey ops we were required by law to have a marine mammal observer on watch. If they sighted any whales in the area, we shut down the air guns. In the old days they used sticks of dynamite, now they use 3000psi air guns. Loud.

Bear in mind our ship cost up to $50,000 per DAY to operate. And that's just for the ship, crew, and technicians, not the scientists and who or what ever they bring. Commercial vessels probably cost much more to operate; the greatest cost is diesel; ships burn thousands of gallons per day; we bought ours from the Navy. But the MMO's were professional scientists and took their jobs seriously and we respected them and I would call them my friends. The idea that any of the other acoustic instruments could harm marine mammels was never broached. Another time I sailed with a large group of marine biologists who were basically pinging whales with high powered sonar to see what would happen because they were concerned with high powered sonars effects on whales. They never brought up any of the ships other acoustic instruments.

It's possible that MB has an effect. You could hear our MB all over the ship. We ran a Simrad EM-120 at 12khz, which I can hear pretty well. It sounded like a really loud bird chirping. And sometimes you could even hear the tinkling echos off the seabed. I can see how it MIGHT annoy whales. And I bet the commercial ships run a much higher-power sonar. They drag like 12 airguns when we drag one or two. I think a lot of it also depends on where you're operating. Most of the ocean is surprisingly empty and devoid of higher life forms. Perhaps greater percautions are needed close to whale populations. It's just surprising because as a member of the oceanographic community I for one was not aware that this issue was even on the radar (no pun intended).

MB sonar is generally a "good thing". We can only get very coarse bathymetry via satellite. MB is necessary to map the seabed in any detail and seabed maps are critical to earth science. I just hope this doesn't turn into some sort of sonar hysteria where we are unecessarily restricting good scence based on bad science.

Re:As a shipboard oceanographic technician...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh. The irony continues. If you read the original report, air guns were NOT involved. The popular press has confused discussion of the echosounder survey with a seismic survey in the area, which was several days *after* the stranding and therefore eliminated as a possible cause. Both of them are discussed in the report. Only one of them is relevant because it was occurring before the stranding.

Inversion.

[SeNtM]

Well, the crew and oil employee did not observe any "whales"....You see, the sonar causes the Melon headed whale to go through a process known as instantaneous inversion, or in other words, its insides are immediately flipped inside-out, due to water pressure and being hit by the pulse. What they did see was a new species of whale sized jelly fish...they called her Exxo...and they believe using this sonar will help increase their population.

Re:Right

[justthinkit]

LFAS can still approach 160 dB hundreds of miles from the deploying vessel

Consider the source

[leereyno]

Once upon a time I would have assumed that the claims of whales dying were made in good faith.

Not anymore.

The environmental movement is so overrun with watermelon-marxists (green on the outside, red on the inside) that any claims have to be carefully screened to ensure that they are not an anti-capitalist scam masquerading as environmental concern.

That the target of this claim is an oil company looking for new sources of petroleum, makes me highly suspicious.