Exactly two years after the largest known mass stranding of whales in Australia to date, hundreds of marine mammals have again been washed ashore in the same bay. A total of about 230 animals were spotted in the shallow Macquarie Bay in western Tasmania on Wednesday, the Tasmanian Natural Resources Authority said. About half of them were initially still alive.
Experts assume that – like two years ago – it is a matter of pilot whales. At the end of September 2020, a total of around 470 animals got lost in the remote bay in the same region, of which only 111 could be rescued in a complex rescue operation.
Among other things, a change in sea temperatures triggered by the climate phenomena La Niña and El Niño could be responsible for the mass stranding, explained Karen Stockin, an expert on whale and dolphin strandings at New Zealand’s Massey University. Then the animals would often come closer than usual to the coast. If a single animal is sick, injured or weak and therefore stranded, hundreds could follow, explained the expert. “They don’t do it because they’re stupid, but because of their emotional connection to the other animals,” Australian media quoted Griffith University marine biologist Olaf Meynecke as saying. Another possible cause is mis-navigation by the leader of the group, Stockin says.
Marine biologists now want to develop a plan to save the surviving sea giants. Helpers spoke of “surreal scenes”. They tried to protect the animals with special blankets. The Australian Guardian quoted a man who had already helped with the 2020 whale operation as saying that the largest specimens weighed two to three tons.