Human factor suspected in mass beaching of whales in Australia

[leftchick]

video at link. This is so sad. :cry:


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5834714.ece

Conservationists are demanding an immediate and thorough inquiry into what they say is the suspicious stranding of 200 whales and dolphins.

Fears that the mass stranding on an Australian beach on Sunday was caused by human disturbance were raised because two species of cetacean came ashore simultaneously.

Most of the animals were pilot whales, but a number of bottlenose dolphins were also among the pod.

Residents joined wildlife workers to spend hours keeping the surviving animals wet and cool before they could be lifted, pushed and hauled back into the water.

The rescue operation succeeded in saving 54 pilot whales and five dolphins on Naracoopa Beach on King Island, Tasmania. Most of the beached animals were dead by the time anyone could reach them.

Wildlife workers and volunteers were delighted to have saved more than a quarter of the whales and dolphins, but they were maintaining a watch on beaches in the area for fear that some of the creatures might come ashore again during the next high tides. Officials of the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service were trying to discover last night why 192 whales and seven dolphins had beached themselves but said that the stranding, like many others before, was likely to remain a mystery.

[navarth]

1. I wonder if any submarines were shooting sonar around

or maybe those poor innocent creatures ran into some really toxic human pollution?

Humans will get what we deserve. I just wish we wouldn't take down all the other life with us.

[blues90]

2. It's a given that man and his crap had everything to do

with this. we have to be everywhere all the time with our damn machines and pollution and sub's and sonar and assorted crap. It's a shame that the inventions man has created does not make man wander into the ocean and drown in mass numbers or off the edge of a cliff. Let it back fire.