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War of the Whales

Photo by Ken Balcomb
Smuggler’s Cove, San Juan Island, Washington (2003). Guided missile destroyer USS Shoup conducting a sonar sweep of Haro Strait.";

In 2000, there was a mysterious mass stranding of whales in the Bahamas. Marine biologist Ken Balcomb set out to find the cause, and CT scans found “acoustic trauma” to their brains. That’s when the Navy shut him out, and Balcomb teamed up with lawyer Joel Reynolds to prove the connection between Navy sonar and whale deaths. Wednesday, science writer Joshua Horwitz joins us to tell the story of “War of the Whales,” and to explore the unintended consequences of technology and our quest for security.

Joshua Horwitz is founder and publisher of Living Planet Books. War of the Whales [Indiebound|Amazon] is published by Simon & Schuster.

Doug Fabrizio has been reporting for KUER News since 1987, and became News Director in 1993. In 2001, he became host and executive producer of KUER's RadioWest, a one hour conversation/call-in show on KUER 90.1 in Salt Lake City. He has gained a reputation for his thoughtful style. He has interviewed everyone from Isabel Allende to the Dalai Lama, and from Madeleine Albright to Desmond Tutu. His interview skills landed him a spot as a guest host of the national NPR program, "Talk of the Nation." He has won numerous awards for his reporting and for his work with RadioWest and KUED's Utah NOW from such organizations as the Society of Professional Journalists, the Utah Broadcasters Association, the Public Radio News Directors Association and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.