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Over 120 Pilot Whales Killed in Mass Beaching in New Zealand

Some of the pilot whales stranded on the Chatham Islands in New Zealand. Photo:AFP/Getty

 

Over 120 Pilot Whales Killed in Mass Beaching in New Zealand

 

By Patryk Krych | The World Daily | NOVEMBER 25th 2020

 

Following a massive stranding of well over a hundred pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins on the Chatham Islands, 100 of the animals had been confirmed as dead with 26 having had to be euthanised once it was acknowledged that there was little that could be done to save them.

The New Zealand's Department of Conservation (DOC) recently spoke out about the mass stranding of whales and dolphins on the remote Chatham Islands, located around 800 km (497 miles) off the East coast of New Zealand.

The Department said that to their knowledge, 97 pilot whales and 3 dolphins were killed due to the mass stranding, for which the cause is also under prompt investigation. It’s not an entirely unusual incident, with New Zealand’s coasts suffering frequent strandings of this type from marine animals. There was even a similar incident along the nearby Australian coasts a few months back in late September, and on a much larger scale.

Back in the year 1918, an infamously deadly stranding had taken place along the same coasts of the Chatham Islands and had thus taken the live of nearly 1,000 marine animals. The cause of such annual incidents has baffled scientists and marine biologists for many decades.

New Zealand officials have released formal reports about the present incident on Wednesday, though the DOC had learned of this incident on Sunday. Though the strandings were discovered on the weekend, attempts at a rescue were severely hindered by the remote nature of the islands, and the subsequent difficulty in deploying assistance.

“Only 26 of the whales were still alive at this point, the majority of them appearing very weak, and were euthanised due to the rough sea conditions and almost certainty of there being great white sharks in the water which are brought in by a stranding like this,” said Jemma Welch, a DOC Biodiversity Ranger.

“I mean the Chatham Islands,” said Sam Wild, a commercial photographer and diver who had witnessed the strandings. “Is a pretty remote place, their beaches are pretty remote, there's not a lot of people around them so when they were eventually found the radio call went out to a few people, cause there's so many divers around the island, myself included.”

He’d taken photos of the incident after having been told by authorities to leave the water, along with a group of other divers. He described it as a horrific and “emotional” scene. The diving community around the islands are being kept away from the waters due to the expected build-up of sharks, which typically follow such mass strandings in order to feed on the remaining carcasses.

Wild added that such whale strandings aren’t uncommon and happen every year or two along these islands. Even the official DOC website describes the Chatham Islands as a “hotspot” for mass strandings of pilot whales. Studies devoted to learning why these types of incidents occur have been going on for years, but there is still no clear answer.

Some scientists believe that along with such circumstances as changing weather, chase by predators, sickness, tide changes, and navigational mistakes, a key reason to these mass strandings may relate in some way to the threat of climate change. The idea states that a warming climate may cause the primary food sources of whales and dolphins to migrate to gradually shallower waters, therefore contributing to their strandings. Besides such theories, not much else is known about the causes.

 

By Patryk Krych | © The World Daily 2020

 

 

Categories:
Environment
Tags:
AustraliaWildlifeOceansMarine LifeWhales