Singer James Taylor: Last 300 Rare Whales Need You to Take Action

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/Act_Now_To_Save_The_Whales_NC

Only 300 North Atlantic right whales are believed to exist -- and unfortunately their migratory route goes right through the area where the U.S. Navy plans to unleash lethal mid-frequency sonar off North Carolina's coast.
Singer James Taylor is leading our campaign to block this onslaught of deadly sonar. (You can read his personal message below if you haven’t already.) More than 82,000 NRDC Action Fund activists have already joined him in opposing the Navy’s plan.
Our goal is to send 100,000 messages. Please send your message now.
Tell the Navy to do the right thing -- and protect the world's last right whales from this sonar assault.
Sincerely,
Frances Beinecke
President
NRDC Action Fund
P.S. If you would like to do even more to help us protect these last 300 right whales -- and whales all over the world -- please make a special holiday online contribution to the NRDC Action Fund now.



I find it hard to believe.

The U.S. Navy wants to put a training range for lethal mid-frequency sonar next to a key migratory route for endangered right whales -- off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Click here and tell the Navy not to put its proposed sonar range next to the right whale's migratory route.

I grew up in North Carolina. My father served in the Navy while we lived there, and I have sailed up and down the Eastern seaboard many times. Like so many people, I love the wild beauty of the North Carolina coast, including its magnificent whales.

So I find it mind-boggling that our government would choose this sensitive environment as the training ground for a type of sonar that can kill whales.

The Navy's new Atlantic Undersea Warfare Training Range would create a 500-square-mile hub of sonar activity -- assaulting whales, dolphins and other marine life with a year-round barrage of deafening sound.

That barrage would occur without apparent interruption -- even during the peak, annual migration of the North Atlantic right whale, one of the most endangered whale species on Earth. Only about 300 of these whales are believed to exist.

Given what we know about the dangers of sonar, can we stay silent while our military bombards the world's last right whales with this deadly noise?

Click here to protect the world's last right whales from deadly sonar: http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/Act_Now_To_Save_The_Whales_NC

The Navy itself has admitted that sonar can kill whales. Around the world -- from Hawaii to the Canary Islands -- whales have been found stranded or dying following their encounters with naval sonar. And scientists have demonstrated that intense noise puts right whales in additional danger of being struck and killed by ships.

Strandings have even happened in North Carolina! Thirty seven whales of three different species beached themselves on the shores of the Outer Banks following sonar exercises in 2005. Yet the Navy is planning to build its new testing range just south of where the mass stranding occurred.

If you and I wait for more pictures of dying whales on the beaches of North Carolina it will be too late.

No one is asking the Navy to compromise its training or its readiness. Certainly, I'm not. I'm from a naval family. I fully appreciate the Navy's vital mission.

But we are asking the Navy to find a place and a time for training that is less likely to torture and kill some of the most magnificent creatures on Earth. Taking that simple precaution is the sensible and moral thing to do.

Right whales should not have to die for military practice.

Please join me and the NRDC Action Fund in demanding that the Navy consider less sensitive locations for its new sonar training range and the deadly noise it will produce.

Click here now and tell the Navy to do the right thing: http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/Act_Now_To_Save_The_Whales_NC

I hope you'll also help us build nationwide opposition to the Navy’s proposal by forwarding this message to anyone you know who cares about whales.

Let's not wait for whales to start dying in North Carolina. Please speak out now.

Sincerely,

James Taylor
NRDC Action Fund




http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/Act_Now_To_Save_The_Whales_NC