Military sonar exercises have been linked to mass cetacean strandings and welfare harm through acoustic trauma to sound-sensitive dolphins and whales.
Military sonar welfare harm to cetaceans represents a collision between national security interests and animal welfare that has been litigated in multiple countries. Beaked whales that strand after sonar exercises show pathological evidence of decompression-sickness-like injuries suggesting they surface rapidly in a panic response to sonar — their own diving behavior becoming lethal under extreme acoustic stress. Even non-lethal sonar exposure disrupts foraging in blue whales and other species, causing chronic welfare harm from interrupted feeding.