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In an strange case of déjà vu , a pod of some 230 original whales stranded on Tasmania ’s western seashore on Wednesday ( Sept. 21 ) , exactly two years to the day after a different pod of pilot whales stranded on and near the same beach .
The eerie timing of the stranding could well be a coincidence , Rob Deaville , project managing director of the Zoological Society of London ’s Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme ( CSIP ) , told Live Science . A identification number of factors can drive cetacean — marine mammals such as whale and dolphin — to ground , and at this point , it ’s unclear which broker played into this finical incident , he said .
More than 200 pilot whales stranded on a beach in western Tasmania.
" These events are obviously awfully inauspicious and terribly sad , but there is a historic case law for them , " Deaville added . " There ’s a long history , regrettably , for pilot giant stranding and mass stranding , globally , " and Australia happens to be a hotspot for such event , he said .
About 200 pilot program whales ( Globicephala ) so far have exit in the most recent Tasmania stranding , and their carcase may offer clues as to why the animals ended up on shore . The Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania ( NRE Tas ) will behave post - mortem investigating on the at rest animal , but for now , " what induce the whale stranding is obscure , " the department state in astatement . Even with the post - mortem analytic thinking , the campaign of the stranding " may not be able-bodied to be determine , " the section say .
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" Unfortunately , we do have a high mortality rate rate on this particular stranding , " as most of the animals stranded on Ocean Beach , a long stretchability of coastline exposed to the poke surf , Brendon Clark , an NRE Tas staff member and incident controller for the stranding result , tell reporters at a local jam briefing on Thursday ( Sept. 22 ) . Only a few of the animals were detect run aground within the nearby Macquarie Harbor , on a moxie savourless , NRE Tas reported .
During the previous mint stranding in 2020 , many of the fender whale beached themselves within the estuary of Macquarie Harbor , " so they were actually stranded in much more sheltered Ethel Waters , " Clark said .
That previous stranding involved about 470 long - finned pilot whales ( Globicephala melas ) , which are actually a large mintage of mahimahi , Live Science previously reported . About 30 of the brute stranded on Ocean Beach and more than 200 more were discovered on sandbars located just inside Macquarie Harbor ’s entrance — a shallow , narrow-minded television channel know as " Hell ’s Gates . " About 200 more archetype whales were found further south , in bay within the harbour , The Sydney Morning Herald reportedat the sentence .
In 2020 , deliverance teams were able to " re - swim " and turn about 111 of the fender whale back into deep water , NBC reported . In this week ’s stranding , rescuers have so far been able to release 32 pilot burner hulk back into the ocean and they aim to deliver three more on Friday dawn ( Sept. 23 ) , grant to NRE Tas . Those stay three whales were initially unprocurable due to the tides .
Ocean Beach remains closed to the public as the stranding response squad continue their rescue efforts , examines the deceased whales and homework the carcasses for electric pig , which will demand working with local aquaculture companionship to pull the dead pilot light whale offshore and deposit them in deep water .
As the reply team deals with the prompt effects of the stranding , the motion of why the pilot whales beach themselves still looms unanswered .
more often than not , " it tends to be the most social species that mass strand the most frequently , " Deaville said . Pilot heavyweight — named " pilot " because they follow one another in a blood line — are acknowledge to form stiff social bonds , he say . Evidence paint a picture that , in some display case , deal strandings might occur because one phallus of the pod becomes ill or injured and terminate up stranding and the sleep of the pod follows suit . In these cases , the injured or sick cetacean mammal can terminate up in the shallows after becoming disorient or drift ashore with the current .
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Evidence also suggests that whales ' and dolphins ' echolocation does n’t work as well in shallow , near - shoring water as it does in the depths of the sea , Deaville said . So if these creature jeopardize into shallow waters while chase prey or stick with another seedpod member , they may be unable to navigate back to the safety of deep waters .
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Tasmania ’s westerly coastline happens to lie down near a " ledge edge , " beyond which the piddle deepens and nautical mammals often forage , Kris Carlyon , a wildlife life scientist with the NRE Tas Marine Conservation Program , toldABC News . Examining the at rest pilot whale ' stomach contents may reveal if the whales were hunt near - shore quarry prior to stranding , Carlyon said at a insistence briefing .
The post - mortem exam could also reveal if any heavyweight were sick , hurt or debunk to some variety of toxin before stranding , but " we ’re not expecting to detect anything like that , to be honest , " Carlyon said . " These mass stranding events are typically the outcome of inadvertent coming to shoring , and that ’s for a whole host of reason . "
Sometimes , those reasons are related to human activity , Deaville said . For example , noisepollution , include that cause by sonar and seismic surveys , can disrupt cetacean mammal ' ability to navigate , frighten the mammal or even injure them , potentially raising the risk of strandings , according to National Geographic .
Given all the factors that can lead to strandings , is there any agency of preventing such events ? " That ’s sort of [ a ] million dollar doubtfulness — what can we do to intercept this come about in the hereafter , given that we know this is a aggregative run aground hot spot ? " Carlyon aver at the briefing . For now , that inquiry does n’t have a satisfying answer , he say .
" We ’ll go on to bet at that interrogative , and whether some young technology or new , new ideas might help out in that regard , but at the moment we simply do n’t have that alternative up our sleeve , " he said .
Originally published on Live Science .
