Swimmer: High-pitched noise preceded whale’s stranding

KIHEI - A Kihei man reported Wednesday that he heard what he believed were sonar noises in the water when he was swimming and diving off Papohaku Beach in west Molokai on Sunday.

Colin Crosby, who said he has been in Hawaii for 20 years, reported the sounds after learning about a whale stranding on the south shore of Molokai on Monday that some whale advocates suspect was the result of Navy sonar use.

A statement by Crosby was issued Wednesday by Earthjustice, the legal agency that has represented the Ocean Mammal Institute and other groups challenging sonar use around marine mammals.

A Navy spokesman, Mark Matsunaga, said he could not comment on whether there was sonar use occurring at the time Crosby reported hearing the noise, but he said the Navy is analyzing data on its training exercises using sonar.

"Without being there or talking with him, we will not speculate on what Mr. Crosby or his friends may have heard," Matsunaga said.

A Cuvier's beaked whale was sighted swimming into shore on the reef flats off Molokai on Monday morning. Attempts to force the animal back to sea failed and a stranding response team from the Marine Mammal Stranding Network determined the animal should be euthanized.

Wende Goo, an information officer for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said examination of the whale is continuing on Oahu but a necropsy and other tests have not found injuries or other indications of a cause of the whale's stranding.

She said Wednesday that she had no new information on what may have caused the whale to strand and had not been told of the report by Crosby.

Crosby told The Maui News he was swimming off the beach at about 11:30 a.m. Sunday when he heard what sounded like a squeal that repeated itself and increased in intensity.

"It was like an electronic wail that was increasing in pitch, a series of sounds like signals," he said.

He said he and others camping with him heard the sound even when they were out of the water. But Crosby said he did not see any ships or other potential sources of the sound nearby.

The Earthjustice statement said the Cuvier's beaked whale, a deep-diving whale, is believed to be vulnerable to mid-frequency sonar, which was scheduled to be used during Navy exercises as part of the ongoing Rim of the Pacific program.

Paul Achitoff, an Earthjustice attorney, said the evidence "is about as strong as it can be," with a whale known to be susceptible to injury from sonar stranding a day after sonar soundings were heard in the area.