THE TRUTH ABOUT WHY WHALES MASS STRAND

June 01, 2015: The pod was first spotted at 4.40 pm on Monday (June 1st) off the coast near the city of Staffin, which is situated on Scotland's Isle of Skye. Mike Merritt took a picture of the pod. lost pilot whales spyhopping trying to determine her location Notice that the pod is not swimming in any direction, or diving and feeding. They are sort of drifting along in a relatively calm sea. One whale can be seen raising his head out of the water trying to see what's going on around and near the pod. This is called spyhopping and is strong indication that the pod has no acoustic sense of direction. The loss of their biosonar was most likely due to a previous barotraumatic sinus injury caused by exposure to seismic waves above the epicenter of an earthquake along the Reykjanes Ridge ( see below). Spyhopping behavior is common in pilot whales prior to beaching themselves ( link ). They are obviously trying to see a way out of the jam they are in. The weath...

April 10, 2015 : Extreme changes in diving pressure generated during a seaquake caused barotrauma in the cranial air sinuses of a pod of melon-headed dolphins on 22 March (see below). Because they use the air in their sinuses and air sacs serve as acoustic mirrors bouncing, focusing, and channeling returning echo location and navigation clicks in a fashion to make their biosonar work, a pressure-related tear in the membranes of these air spaces knocks out their navigation. They swim blindly downstream in the path of least drag arriving at a 6-mile stretch of Hokota Beach about 60 miles northeast of Tokyo Japan on Friday morning. Words of an AFP journalist at the scene revealed that the pod has no sense of direction. He wrote that despite efforts to push the dolphins to deep water, they were being washed back onto the beach by the incoming surface current ( link ). That they could not swim to freedom against the incoming flow indicates that they have no acoustic sense of direction...