The New York Times editorial page gave us a second animal supportive editorial last week (the first was endorsing California's Prop 2) when on Saturday, October 11, it ran a piece in favor of continued protection of whales from Navy Sonar. The New York Times has a good history of speaking up for the whales. (See the 2006 DawnWatch alert at http://tinyurl.com/5xpkor )

The troubling news was delivered on Thursday, October 9, in a piece by Adam Liptak headed, "Court Weighs Concerns On Whales And Military" in which he told us that justices "indicated an inclination to overturn a decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, imposing limits on the exercises, saying either that national security concerns trumped environmental ones or that judges are not competent to weigh the competing interests." You can read that piece on line at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/washington/09scotus.html

The editorial from Saturday's paper is headed, ", "The Navy, Whales and the Court."

It opens:
"We hope the Supreme Court has the sense to assert its authority over military activities that can cause environmental harm far from any battlefield. Some of the justices' comments this week sounded as though they were feeling far too deferential to the military.

"The court is considering whether to reverse lower-court decisions that the Navy must restrict its use of sonar in training exercises to protect whales and other marine mammals."

The editorial tells us that "the Bush administration sought to evade restrictions by declaring what looks like a bogus national security emergency. Now it is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the restrictions."

We read that when the ruling was made, "The district court judge drew on the Navy's own records of past exercises and other evidence submitted by the Navy to reach her conclusion that mitigation measures would not unduly constrain training."

The piece ends with "Surely the Supreme Court has the ability to judge whether the military should be allowed to flout environmental laws with a dubious claim of national security."

You'll find the full editorial on line at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/opinion/11sat3.html

Please send a letter to the editor in support of the whales and the New York Times. The New York Times takes letters to the editor at letters@nytimes.com

Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Remember that shorter letters are more likely to be published.

Those who have a copy of "Thanking the Monkey" can read some of the history of this issue in the section "War on the Whales" on page 284.

Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)

Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to read reviews of Karen Dawn's new book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals" and watch the fun celebrity studded promo video.