A dead dolphin is drawing attention once again to controversial sonar trials off the California coast. The Navy and environmentalists have been battling over whether the tests should go ahead; tests have been legal, then not-legal, then legal again, then not-legal again as judges, the president and others all weigh in.

While this was going on a test took place at the end of January.

Now it has emerged that a dolphin washed up dead on the shore of San Nicolas Island as the Navy was wrapping up its tests (LA Times). The Times says it was a northern right whale dolphin Lissodelphis borealis (not to be confused with the northern right whale Eubalaena glacialis).

At the moment the cause of death is undetermined, but the Times says blood and other fluids have been found in the animal’s ears and ear canals. “The same symptoms were found in deep-diving whales that washed ashore in the Canary Islands and the Bahamas after military sonar exercises,” in 2000 and 2002 notes the paper.

A Navy spokesman says “there is no evidence that any type of naval activities caused or contributed to this dolphin’s death” (AP, LA Times).

If it does transpire that it was the sonar that did in this dolphin, things could get heated.