We’ve just launched a historic courtroom battle against the Navy to stop its heartless and deadly assault on whales.The Navy estimates it could kill nearly 1,000 marine mammals over the next five years during routine training and testing with dangerous sonar and explosives. There will be more than 13,000 serious injuries, such as permanent hearing loss or lung damage.

NRDC has moved swiftly to file suit against the Navy in federal court.

We need your immediate financial support in order to wage and win this legal fight on behalf of our planet’s whales.

The Navy’s ships will be blasting ocean waters with nearly 300,000 hours of deafening mid-frequency sonar — the kind of lethal noise that has been shown to cause whales’ internal organs to hemorrhage.

They’ll also be conducting torpedo tests, bombing exercises and underwater explosions — some 1.1 million of these events overall. That’s an average of about one detonation every two minutes for the next five years … many of them in and around sensitive whale habitat.

Here’s the kicker: the Navy has adamantly refused to take precautions that would help save whales — such as avoiding vital areas where whales are known to migrate and raise their young. Mind you, putting these simple safeguards in place would not compromise military readiness one iota.

Please make an emergency donation to help NRDC challenge the Navy’s plan and win the kind of protections that whales so urgently need and deserve.

Our legal challenge takes direct aim at the Navy’s plans to test and train off the coasts of Southern California and Hawaii — some of our country’s most biologically rich and diverse waters, home to at least 39 species of marine mammals, including endangered blue whales and fin whales, as well as vulnerable populations of beaked whales.

Make no mistake: the Navy’s wholesale assault on whales is almost certainly illegal. Our environmental laws obligate the Navy to take steps to prevent whales from stranding, suffering and dying.

But unless compassionate citizens like you and me take the whales’ plight to heart and hold the Navy accountable, the killing of whales will continue unabated — for five long years.

I’m sure you agree: not a single whale should have to die for military practice, much less hundreds of them. The courts are their best and last line of defense. I hope you will stand alongside NRDC as we wage this legal fight for the sake of whale survival.