Oiled Whale  

Today's Herald notes that offshore exploration for oil and gas is hurting marine life. I wonder if there was any exploration being done off WA before the recent whale stranding ? So far the cause has been presumed to be one sick whale (that later died) leading them into the shallows, but as there isn't any oil and gas south of Perth that I know of, it should be easy enough to confirm or deny if there was any exploration going on (though the theories about submarine sonar having similar effects are always a lot harder to prove one way or the other).

An environmental coalition urged the United Nations to take steps to protect whales, dolphins and other marine life from the powerful sound waves used in oil and gas exploration and by the world's navies to navigate and detect submarines.

Marine scientists believe there is a link between the use of high-intensity sound and recent mass strandings of whales and dolphins in waters off Greece, Hawaii, New Zealand and elsewhere around the world since 1985, said the Ocean Noise Coalition.

Concerns about the effects of offshore drilling at Sakhalin Island are also being raised, with worries that the endangered western grey whale may be driven to extinction.

But for Shell, operations there are running into fierce local resistance, and the company has found itself the target of the biggest environmental campaign in Russia. Parallels are being drawn with the resistance the company faced in the Ogoni region of Nigeria, where Ken Saro-Wiwa, the executed writer and environmental activist, led the campaign.

The Sakhalin project is one of the world's most ambitious. The oil giant, which recently announced profits of £9.3bn - the highest recorded by a British listed company - hopes its new £7bn pipeline, platform and LNG plant, will help it cash in on Asia and America's rising demands for oil and gas. The project is likely to be backed by loans from the British Government.

But those who must live with this modern-day bonanza are deeply unsettled. Environmentalists fear that disruption to the life cycle of the bear is but the tip of the iceberg. The worst-case scenario is an ecological catastrophe on the scale of the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster. There are concerns posed by offshore drilling to the critically endangered western grey whale in the north of the island. The loss of a single breeding-age mother could drive the 100-strong population to extinction.

The 800km pipeline at the centre of the scheme will traverse 21 seismic faults in some of the world's most earthquake-prone territory. It will cross more than 1,000 rivers and streams including dozens of sensitive salmon spawning grounds. Campaigners believe the threat of a serious oil spill on land or a tanker disaster in the seas that surround Sakhalin would wreck the fisheries from which a third of islanders make their living. Worst hit would be Sakhalin's 3,500 indigenous people.

On a related note, Greenpeace is organising a "virtual march" against Korea resuming whaling operations - it would appear the whales (after a 30 year respite) are in for a beating again.

At least offshore wind farms seem to be fairly benign, with news that the danger they pose to migrating birds (and presumably whales) is less than previously thought.

Migrating birds are unlikely to be seriously affected by offshore wind farms, according to a study. Scientists found that birds simply fly around the farm, or between the turbines; less than 1% are in danger of colliding with the giant structures. Writing in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, the researchers say previous estimates of collision risk have been "over-inflated". However, conservationists warn that turbines pose other risks to birdlife. The research project involved one of Denmark's two large offshore wind farms, Nysted in the Baltic Sea, which contains 72 turbines each measuring 69m to the top of the nacelle or hub. It started operating in 2003.

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