Pod of 77 whales found in worst mass stranding in century
We are, generally, seeing more strandings, more whale corpses and so on.
My theory is that this is simply a reflection of that we no longer hunt them. Populations are recovering. The sheer mass of whales out in the ocean in the “natural” state is something we’ve not seen for many a century. We may be getting back to it, at least partially. Which is what explains these increases in sightings of the dead via varied forms and methods.
One of those definitely something to it but how much? ideas.
Isn’t it the contention that the whales are getting discombobulated by all the sonar from subs, buoys and SOSUS activity?
Both theories could be true.
That beach is way out on Sanday (population 9) island, which is two islands out from Orkney mainland. Before drones and light aircraft we might never have known. And even if you found one you might not have reported it as a stranding but saw it as an opportunity to get some oils, fats and fertiliser.
The obvious question is what historical records are there of strandings from say the 16th century, before we started serious industrialised whaling? These will suffer the reverse problem – less people then with less mobility so fewer reports, but at least historians could give us some idea of how prevalent stranding were with a large population.
I blame Captian Kirk
No, it’s climate change. Everything bad or different that happens is climate change and it will just get worse and worse unless we build more windmills and buy electric cars.
In the past they were sufficiently common that the law was made that they belonged to The Crown. If they were as rare as people expect, they wouldn’t have been legislated for.
I vastly prefer another explanation. Infrasound from offshore wind farms confusing the whales. Give an environmental faction a reason to campaign against building more of them. Never let an opportunity to confound ones enemies pass by. So shush on the whale population explosion please & lets have more heart rending photos of deaduns.
Reasonable Tim.
Of course it may also be that whale strandings were simply not something that people paid much attention to in the good old days.
Whale oil is a renewable resource. If I was a whale this thought would make me pretty depressed.
Seems plausible to me. I’m sure they’ll be someone along explaining how it’s Israel, Trump or whatever but yes.
Oh do come along, Tim. You know the ‘correct’ answer is they can’t cope in the boiling oceans.
Nah. Why should dead whales be exempted from the bogus Science of the age?
It’s the windmills, it’s the plastics in the oceans, it’s the global boiling, it’s whale pox caused by a deadly virus shortly to cause a human pandemic.
Correction, it’s Kneel Smarmer’s Brylcreem.
@Phillip- Futurama made a joke about that once with a giant can of ‘Moby 1’ whale oil.
Plenty of white whales on Britain’s streets, beaches and preferred holiday destinations, usually cobvered in tattoos …
More people around to notice, and those people all having a mass communication device clutched in their hot sweaty hands to inform the whole world.
It took a few days for news of the election results to sink through to them.
It’s not very long in historical terms since whale strandings would have been very unlikely to be observed. Whales were very valuable, so if one came close to shore, it would be quickly hunted, resulting in it either being killed or driven away. Any which found a sufficiently deserted place to avoid that and strand themselves might not have been noticed at all.
“Oh no, not again”
>Geoffers
July 12, 2024 at 7:14 am
Isn’t it the contention that the whales are getting discombobulated by all the sonar from subs, buoys and SOSUS activity?
SOSUS is passive and subs don’t use their active sonar very much. As for sonar buoys, its not like they’re dumping hundreds in the ocean every day – and the ocean is a really big place.
You’d have to be a really unlucky pod of whales to be in range of a sub (and somehow remained undetected by the sub so it moves away and you can’t hear the sub yourself) to get blasted by a rare active ping.
Tim,
I think it’s in John Buchan’s Island of Sheep with the whales coming in to the cove. Bit horrible as I recall.
1. Less hunting means more whales and bigger pods.
2. Lot more things to confuse whales these days : sonar, wind farms, Ed Milliband….
Didn’t happen under the last govt so must be because of Labour. 🙂
See also: starving polar bears