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Earthquake Kills Pregnant Sperm Whale

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Thursday, September 20, 2012 September 2012:  ZAMBOANGA CITY, PHILIPPINES -- A 52-footer pregnant sperm whale was found dead floating offshore east of this city, officials said Wednesday. The dead whale was first spotted floating at 6.932N; 122.271E  in shallow water just offshore of Sacol Island. It was carried to a special area and buried. ( news article ) Local experts said it appeared that the whale had been dead only a few days; however, the many photographs of the whale indicated that it might have been dead much longer. Deafwhale members checked to waters upstream for 3,000 miles looking for any seismic disturbances that might have injured this whale.  The only possible natural catastrophe we found was a potent thrusting earthquake that occurred only 115 miles from where the whales was first spotted. Very unusual.  We have never before found evidence that an earthquake killed a whale outright... but we have always felt it was possible. It is o...

TWO QUAKES CAUSE NEAR BEACHING IN CAPE VERDE ISLANDS

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August 2012:  The Cape Verde mass stranding of 17 pilot whales took place on Santa Maria Beach (Sal Island 16.590N; 22.900W) during early morning hours on August 24, 2012.  The rescuers were able to push the whales back into deep water and they swam off with the surface flow. These whales were easily rescued because the depth of water at this beach drops off rather quickly due to beach erosion by currents that run parallel to the shoreline at Santa Maria Beach. In other words, this beach is not your stranding-typical, gradually-slopping beach. You can see the water quickly gets deeper near the whales in the pictures. You can also see that the whales are swimming from left to right indicating that the current was flowing west (to the right) and along the shoreline. The two quakes that injured this pod occurred along the Central Mid Atlantic Ridge, just north of the equator at: 4:49N; 32:73W. The first event was a shallow, thrus...