Alert for Sperm Whale Standing on Italy's Southern Coast on or about 22 September 2010

On Thursday, 10 December 2009, nine (9) sperm whales beached on Italy's southern coast (North of Varano Lake, Peninsula of Gargano, Apulia, Southeast Italy -- 41.920N at 15.743E). At least seven died in what experts said was a rare and puzzling mass beaching for such a large species. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6796434/Nine-whales-beached-in-Italy-in-rare-accident.html The marine mammal experts determined that the whales died because they ate a lot of plastic trash. Deafwhale laughed. Why the heck would a mighty sperm whale eat plastic unless he/she was already sick and dying? Deafwhale knew that seaquake-injured whales are starving and will often eat anything on the surface that remotely resembles the body of a squid. He ignored the so-called experts and did a search for the real culprit, which turned out to be a 5.7 magnitude earthquake in an area of the Ionian Sea known to be the year-around home of a large group of sperm whales. http://www.deafwhale.com/stranded_whale/2009/sperm_whales_italy.htm Strange as it may seem, on 22 August 2010 (at 1:23 PM local time) another earthquake of the same magnitude struck the very same area in the center of the sperm whale habitat. http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=144865 The seismic fault in this area is thrusting so it is likely that the event would have generated a series of potent vertical traveling pressure waves that would have cause barotrauma in any nearby pod of diving whales. There is one drawback. The event happened at 1:23 pm, a time when sperm whales are more likely to be found on the surface, rather than down deep near the epicenter. Diving whales are 100 times more vulnerable at depth, then resting on the surface. The only question at the time of this posting is with the flow of the surface currents. Will the currents carry any injured whales toward the Italian Coast? The odds favor such a beaching. We will know within about 30 days. Deafwhale