Subscribe to one of our news e-mail lists. Scientists discovered the clues earlier this year in March, when seven whales were found dead on a Bahamas beach, near the time and location of a U.S. Navy sonar operation.
Beaked whales are teuthophagous.
The seven dead whales were found to have inner ear damage, which scientists said might have ruined their sense of direction and ability to navigate. Whales with inner ear damage can become disoriented and mistakenly swim too close to shore, beaching themselves and eventually dying. Because multiple inner ear damage among beached whales is very rare, officials said creatures might have been injured by the Navy's powerful sonar technology. Although scientists have long suspected that whale beachings were linked to Navy activities, the March beaching has provided some of the strongest evidence to date reinforcing that suspicion. In previous beachings where sonar was the suspected cause, no whale carcasses were recovered for study.