WASHINGTON The Navy plans to increase ocean warfare exercises, conduct more sonar tests and expand coastal training areas by hundreds of square miles activities that could injure hundreds of thousands of marine mammals or disturb their habitats, federal records show.
Training areas already are established along most of the continental U.S. coastline, so the Navy is seeking federal permits to broaden an existing range off the Pacific Northwest and dramatically expand exercises and sonar use in the Gulf of Alaska.
The service also plans to increase training substantially in the Pacific around the Mariana Islands.
The Navy estimates in federal permit applications that its activity in those areas will impact about half a million sea mammals each year, including seals, sea lions and whales, some of which are endangered.
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