Community | June 06, 2009 | 24 comments

55 whales die after mass beaching in South Africa

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE54T0UR20090531?feedType=RSS&feedName=e...

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openmind
At least 55 whales stranded on a beach near Cape Town were put down or died after rescue teams failed to return them to the ocean, a sea rescue institute said on Sunday.

Scientists shot 42 of the false killer whales on Saturday and 13 others perished, possibly from internal injuries, at Kommetjie Beach, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said.

"We don't know if any of those we managed to get back to the water had survived ... one of them just washed up at the rocks around the Kommetjie lighthouse this morning and this could continue over the week," spokesman Craig Lambinon said.

Marine scientists and volunteers worked all day to try to get the whales back into the water, but many were pushed back ashore by waves.

Rescuers had battled to keep the beached adults and calves wet and used earth-moving equipment to try to save them.

Lambinon said it was unclear why the whales had come ashore early in the day and it was the first mass beaching of whales he knew of on the popular stretch of coast.

He said tests would be carried out on samples from the carcasses to try to establish the reason for the beaching.

Rescue teams had contemplated taking the whales to a nearby naval base and transporting them on boats to the deep sea, but the idea was abandoned because the animals' condition deteriorated rapidly.

The NSRI first identified them as pilot whales, but said later they were false killer whales.

Whale-watching off South Africa's coast is a popular attraction with tourists, who often line roads at strategic spots to catch a glimpse of the giants of the ocean.
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24 comments // 55 whales die after mass beaching in South Africa

  • peacefulized
  • Mikeysfake1
  • KeineReue
    • 0
      KeineReue  

    • this is soo sad. hopefully someone will figure out what happened. I hope it's not because of our Stupid species. It's bad enough what we do to ourselves and each other. We are really leaving a horrible footprint on this planet. *sigh*. I Hope we get our shit together and atone for the damage we are doing to the planet.

    • 2 years ago
  • clownpuncher
  • isnamthere
  • DewLillyDesign
    • 0
      DewLillyDesign  

    • I used to live in Cape Town - this is really sad news! I've had a really special close-encounter with one of these gentle spectacular creatures when I was still living there ... I'll never forget it.

    • 2 years ago
  • SamuraiDave
  • Aktaeon
  • WakeUpPeople
  • krush_productions
  • Ares
  • cabinettags
    • 0
      cabinettags  

    • Well, let be all real scientfiic about this, ok? Let's measure everything we can measure. Figure this shit out.

      This is obviously a pod, a group, a herd, whatever you to call it. The leader had to go first. If one of these whales, who wasn't the leader, had gone first - the group wouldn't have necessarily followed, now would they? But follow they did. ALL of them. Even the ones we managed to get back in the ocean just did it again. The article quotes 55. I count 15 in the hoto. So visualize 4 photo's, subtract 5 whales from one of them and there you have the total. It's worse than it looks.

      In the history of mankind have there ever been tales of wild animals, groups of them, doing weird shit? Mass suicide? Animals? Not that I've read.

      Is this not a signal? I mean are we not seeing something we should be paying attention to? Something is wrong. This has happened before. Remember the whales in Ca? It's continuing. Do you know what it is? I don't.

      I suggest maybe this is important. It's been more than a year , maybe a lot longer, since this happened the first time. Do we know anymore now than we did then? Something is going on, we just don't know what.

      Point being, does anyone? Do we know what's wrong? How can we stop a thing, when we don't know what's wrong? By all the Lords of High Peaks something is happening. SOMETHING

      I think this is a warning. At least we should take it as one. Animals, (whales aren't that far behind us as far as intelligence goes) are doing weird shit. Why are they doing this? Do they see something we don't? Sense it? Feel it? They're killing themselves; and we don't know why.

      We need to know the why. If something needs to be corrected we need to know what. Simple matter if we could talk to the whales. We can't.
      We need to know why.

    • 2 years ago
  • SamuraiDave
    • 0
      SamuraiDave  
    • cabinettags:

      "In the history of mankind have there ever been tales of wild animals, groups of them, doing weird shit? Mass suicide? Animals? Not that I've read."

      You need to read more - ever heard of lemmings?

    • 2 years ago
  • pukemnukem
    • 0
      pukemnukem  
    • cabinettags:

      The concept that Lemmings commit mass suicide is false. It was started from a Disney produced documentary that was faked. They literally threw the lemmings over the cliff to get the shots for the film. Lemmings do not jump off of cliffs to combat over population.

    • 2 years ago
  • Pawper
    • 0
      Pawper  
    • cabinettags:

      Paaaaranoid. Animals aren't doing weird shit. There is a reason but it's not nearly so ominous. It could be sonar, or global warming, or just a freak accident. It's not the end of the world.

    • 2 years ago
  • michelleee
  • SamuraiDave
    • 0
      SamuraiDave  
    • cabinettags:

      lemmings are a good example. Forget the mass suicide myth of overpopulation. It's well known that lemmings in Norway for example are driven to swim sometimes great bodies of water to reach new habitants. Many of them drown from exhaustion which is like the whales except they go from the land to the water and whales do the opposite.

      Whales have been beaching themselves for centuries. They once were land creatures so there might be some ancient lingering desire to return to Terra Firma

    • 2 years ago
  • blackdaylight
    • 0
      blackdaylight  

    • why do we kill ourselves with tobacco, sugar, & other mass produced, heavily processed garbage???

      the mysteries of the world are as complex as they are transparent

    • 2 years ago
  • randallr01
  • 02
  • jenilyoness
    • 0
      jenilyoness  

    • I hope Current follows up this article with the results of their autopsies. I hope the doctors check the whale's bellies for plastic, and their ears for signs of sonar damage.

    • 2 years ago
  • kayceeparker
  • csmonut
    • 0
      csmonut  
    • jenilyoness:

      if they do find damage, they're not going to print it. Wouldn't want people to know that the Japanese whalers are not needed to exterminate a species, it can be done with sound.

    • 2 years ago
  • openmind
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