[URL="http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2012/11/04/100-whales-dolphins-beach-on-tasmanian-coast"]timeslive.com[/URL]
Sapa-dpa | 04 November, 2012 10:04
[IMG]http://media.novinky.cz/575/255756-top_foto1-homda.jpg[/IMG]
(Reuters)
[IMG]http://www.timeslive.co.za/Feeds/Reuters_Images/2012/11/04/mdf90892-26-09-2012-13-09-01-220.jpg/ALTERNATES/crop_630x400/MDF90892-26-09-2012-13-09-01-220.jpg[/IMG]
A beached whale. File photo.
[B]Image by:[/B] NIGEL RODDIS / REUTERS
[B]Volunteers were working Sunday to save the few survivors among about 100 whales and dolphins stranded on a Tasmanian beach, hoping to them back out to sea.[/B]
More than 80 of the animals were dead when a fisherman found them Saturday on King Island. Two whales and six dolphins were considered to be strong enough to attempt to refloat them.
Rescue efforts often break the hearts of those trying to save them as refloated whales often beach again at the same spot or nearby.
"Some of the members of the community were very, very upset after the incident," Tasmania Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Shelley Davison told national broadcaster ABC, adding that "whale beachings are very, very emotional things to go through for everyone who is involved."
King Island whale rescue group member Margaret Barnes told The Mercury newspaper that the stranding was hard on volunteers.
"(They) were screaming for their calves, which were dead. It was all pretty bad."
Three years ago more than 200 whales and dolphins came ashore on King Island, a common spot for beachings in Australia.
Opinions differ on why strandings happen.
Peter Mooney, general manager of the Parks and Wildlife Service in Tasmania, speaking after 2009's beaching on King Island, said that whales and dolphins often put their own survival at risk to stay with their pod.
"They're incredibly socially strong," he said. "One whale beaches and the others come in to be with that whale and we end up with the whole pod stranded. They just won't leave other whales they think are in distress, even if it means their own death.”
[editline]4th November 2012[/editline]
OvB why does this happen :[
[QUOTE] They just won't leave other whales they think are in distress, even if it means their own death.[/QUOTE]
:(
[QUOTE=Fatman55;38311150]:([/QUOTE]
What does mean then that this is a mix of dolphins AND whales, then?
Did coincidentally a dolphin and a whale beach at the same time, or are the dolphins in cahoots with whales, or are they all influenced by the same outside factor?
This is so horrible, I want to know!
What do they die of?
i'd die too if i washed up on tasmania
[QUOTE=Mlisen14;38311183]What do they die of?[/QUOTE]
I think that at least the whales, the actual weight of their their un-submerged body damages itself. They are crushed by their own weight.
It was a failed amphibious invasion just like the war in the pacific where marines were dismounting their landing craft in deep water drowning from the weight of their gear except well with land.
[QUOTE=Mlisen14;38311183]What do they die of?[/QUOTE]
For whales they're just too heavy to exist on land, theY'RE just way too bulky to be out of the water since they require the bouyancy to be the size that they are. Essentially their organs just get crushed under their own weight because their weight isn't being supported.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;38311209]I think that at least the whales, the actual weight of their their un-submerged body damages itself. They are crushed by their own weight.[/QUOTE]
Fuck that's a horrible way to go. I wonder whether the structure of dolphins cause the same problem.
[QUOTE=Mlisen14;38311429]Fuck that's a horrible way to go. I wonder whether the structure of dolphins cause the same problem.[/QUOTE]
I don't really think it does, because these dolphin shows sometimes have them leap on a surface and flop around a bit.
I think it's probably very uncomfortable, like lying on your belly and having something heavy on your back, but they probably take it better than whales.
Its hard for inbreds to judge what's water and what's beach.
WHAT THE FUCK?!
Hate it when this happens; it seems so senseless. :(
Wheres that talking whale? We need him to explain this to us.
[QUOTE=Gas_Snake101;38311575]Wheres that talking whale? We need him to explain this to us.[/QUOTE]
Dead.
i thought dolphins were smart
[QUOTE=Mlisen14;38311183]What do they die of?[/QUOTE]
They died of land.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;38311161]What does mean then that this is a mix of dolphins AND whales, then?
[/QUOTE]
An Awesome beach party?
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;38311445]I don't really think it does, because these dolphin shows sometimes have them leap on a surface and flop around a bit.
I think it's probably very uncomfortable, like lying on your belly and having something heavy on your back, but they probably take it better than whales.[/QUOTE]
With dolphins it probably has something to do with drying out. Every time I see a rescue in a documentary of some sort, they're constantly pouring water over its skin.
They tried to do an earlier invasion, but they have yet to produce the means to breathe and walk on land.
Silly Dolphins and Whales.
Whales have started beaching themselves in Guild Wars 2 in preparation for an event on November 15th :tinfoil:
beached as bro
maybe they were thrown off by the time change?
Watching evolution right in front of us! They are becoming dinosaurs!
Disney's new movie [I]101 Cetaceans[/I] had a "less-than-happy" ending.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E39WWj_RpBc&fmt=18[/media]
I think we all know who is to blame.
Thread music, this song is about stuff like that.
[video=youtube;PQtRXqBQETA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQtRXqBQETA[/video]
I was just about to post that, damn you.
[quote=]There is evidence that active sonar leads to beaching. On some occasions whales have stranded shortly after military sonar was active in the area,[10] suggesting a link. Theories describing how sonar may cause whale deaths have also been advanced after necropsies found internal injuries in stranded whales. In contrast, whales stranded due to seemingly natural causes are usually healthy prior to beaching:
The low frequency active sonar (LFA sonar) used by the military to detect submarines is the loudest sound ever put into the seas. Yet the U.S. Navy is planning to deploy LFA sonar across 80 percent of the world ocean. At an amplitude of two hundred forty decibels, it is loud enough to kill whales and dolphins and already causing mass strandings and deaths in areas where U.S. and/or NATO forces are conducting exercises.
—Julia Whitty, The Fragile Edge[11]
The large and rapid pressure changes made by loud sonar can cause hemorrhaging. Evidence emerged after 17 cetaceans hauled out in the Bahamas in March 2000 following a United States Navy sonar exercise. The Navy accepted blame[12] agreeing that the dead whales experienced acoustically-induced hemorrhages around the ears. The resulting disorientation probably led to the stranding. Ken Balcomb, a whale zoologist, specializes in the killer whale populations that inhabit the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Washington and Vancouver Island.[13] He investigated these beachings and argues that the powerful sonar pulses resonated with airspaces in the whales, tearing tissue around the ears and brain.[14] Apparently not all species are affected by SONAR.[15]
Another means by which sonar could be hurting whales is a form of decompression sickness. This was first raised by necrological examinations of 14 beaked whales stranded in the Canary Islands. The stranding happened on 24 September 2002, close to the operating area of Neo Tapon (an international naval exercise) about four hours after the activation of mid-frequency sonar.[16] The team of scientists found acute tissue damage from gas-bubble lesions, which are indicative of decompression sickness.[16] The precise mechanism of how sonar causes bubble formation is not known. It could be due to whales panicking and surfacing too rapidly in an attempt to escape the sonar pulses. There is also a theoretical basis by which sonar vibrations can cause supersaturated gas to nucleate to form bubbles.[17]
The overwhelming majority of the whales involved in SONAR-associated beachings are Cuvier's Beaked Whales (Ziphius cavirostrus). This species strands frequently, but mass strandings are rare. They are so difficult to study in the wild that prior to the interest raised by the SONAR controversy, most of the information about them came from stranded animals. The first to publish research linking beachings with naval activity were Simmonds and Lopez-Jurado in 1991. They noted that over the past decade there had been a number of mass strandings of beaked whales in the Canary Islands, and each time the Spanish Navy was conducting exercises. Conversely, there were no mass strandings at other times. They did not propose a theory for the strandings.
In May 1996 there was another mass stranding in West Peloponnese, Greece. At the time it was noted as "atypical" both because mass strandings of beaked whales are rare, and also because the stranded whales were spread over such a long stretch of coast with each individual whale spacially separated from the next stranding. At the time of the incident there was no connection made with active SONAR, the marine biologist investigating the incident, Dr. Frantzis, made the connection to SONAR because of a Notice to Mariners he discovered about the test. His scientific correspondence in Nature titled "Does acoustic testing strand whales?"[18] was published in March 1998.
Dr. Peter Tyack, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, has been researching noise's effects on marine mammals since the 1970s. He has led much of the recent research on beaked whales (and Cuvier's beaked whales in particular). Data tags have shown that Cuvier's dive considerably deeper than previously thought, and are in fact the deepest diving species of marine mammal. Their surfacing behavior is highly unusual because they exert considerable physical effort to surface in a controlled ascent, rather than simply floating to the surface like sperm whales. Deep dives are followed by three or four shallow dives. Vocalization stops at shallow depths, because of fear of predators or because they don't need vocalization to stay together at depths where there is sufficient light to see each other. The elaborate dive patterns are assumed to be necessary to control the diffusion of gases in the bloodstream. No data show a beaked whale making an uncontrolled ascent or failing to do successive shallow dives.
The whales may interpret the unfamiliar sound of SONAR as a predator and change its behavior in a dangerous way. This last theory would make mitigation particularly difficult since the sound levels themselves are not physically damaging, but only cause fear. The damage mechanism would not be the sound.[/quote]
That's at least one cause we could prevent.
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