Although we’re always looking for modern culprits to blame for mass whale beaching it has to be said that many of them can be explained by natural phenomena, not least because they’ve been reported throughout history. In 1918 for instance 1,000 whales beached themselves on the Chatham Islands.
The recent tragic spate on Golden Bay’s Farewell Spit in New Zealand of over 400 pilot whales is a good example. Trying to work out why this happens is still a mystery but we can deduce that for instance, an entire group of whales beached themselves after one single whale got sick, injured or stranded. Their social bonds are so strong, pod-mates will always swim to the aid of others, thereby starting a chain reaction with other pods. The spit’s long coastline and gently sloping beaches seem to make it difficult for whales to navigate away from it once they get close to the shoreline as their sonar won’t work that close to the bottom. Along that spit in fact, in lesser numbers, it usually happens every year.
Navigational errors among pods are common, especially when chasing food or coming close to shore to avoid predators such as orcas.
Andrew Lamason, a rescue team leader for the Department of Conservation, Takaka area said it was common for whales involved in a mass stranding to re-beach themselves, because they were social animals and would stay in close proximity to their pod.
“We are trying to swim the whales out to sea and guide them but they don’t really take directions, they go where they want to go,” Lamason said. All this being said, human activity can never totally be ruled out. Guy Venables
