58 pilot whales beached themselves on the coast New Zealand.

[KIDWCKED]

c/p from the weather network.
http://i1015.photobucket.com/albums/af275/toddr1/phpThumb_generated_thumbnail.jpg

58 pilot whales beached themselves on the coast of NZ
Jill Colton, staff writer

August 21, 2010 — Rescuers in New Zealand have helped refloat 11 beached pilot whales after a mass stranding in the northern portion of the country.



Rescuers use cranes to hoist the whales
47 pilot whales beached themselves on an isolated northern New Zealand beach, but rescuers managed to save 11 of the mammals. However, some of the survivors appear to still be in trouble.
All 11 survivors were launched out to the sea and were being monitored to ensure they didn't return to the beach says a spokesperson for the Department of Conservation. But within an hour, four of the whales were showing health difficulties. Conservation authorities are closely monitoring the situation.
A total of 58 pilot whales beached themselves on Thursday night on the remote Karikari Beach. They were stranded for up to 12 hours before they were discovered, which is one of the reasons experts believe so many died.

On Friday, workers and trained volunteers struggled to refloat the survivors by crane and body sling and then transport them a km to Matai Bay, a more sheltered location with calmer waters.
New Zealand has one of the world's highest rates of whale strandings, mainly during their migration to and from Antarctic waters. According to officials, more than 5,000 whales and dolphins have beached themselves around the New Zealand coast since 1840.

[Night Prowler]

Strange......with GPS capabilities today.....you'd think they'd seen it coming.......:D

What's the theory of them doing this???

[patch]

they still don't know why for sure.
Some believe it is a dominant whale in the pod that becomes disorientated because of injury or some type of sickness. The other whales will follow the dominant one. Whales are very socially structured animals.
Some think it comes from a defect in their navagation and one whale gets close to shore, too close and becomes stranded. He wouldn't be the only whale thou as that social structure thing comes into the picture again. The other whales would follow or would not leave the area.
Some believe it is the Navys of the world and their sonar along with the shipping noise from all type of water craft that is screwing up the whales. Except that no one knows exactly how any given whale species navigates. Echolocation is one way some whales identifies objects in the water but they don't know if those same whales navigate thru echolocation.

There was a case about a year ago where a bunch of False Killer whales (related to the dolphin) came ashore in South Africa. The people massed together and with the help of scientists they managed to get the whales back in the water. But once back in the water and were partially revived, they turned back and re-beached themselves. Figure that one out?
Them whales were eventually euthanize after a few attempts to keep them in the water. I whale is a very delicate animal when out of the water and with the cold ocean conditions in the South Africa waters, it would be a very difficult task to keep putting these whales back in the water.

Strandings, as it's called have been reported as far back as Aristotle.
There is a researcher named Darlene Ketten, a neuroethologist and expert on hearing in marine mammals at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod, Mass.

Below is quote from her...
"I often use the analogy of a car crash, because a lot of things can go wrong but you get the same result. Statistically, we are only able to determine the cause of a stranding in about 50 percent of all cases worldwide. In some cases it is obvious, like a ship strike leaving an animal in poor condition. In the northeastern United States pneumonia is a common cause of stranding. We see other diseases and trauma, such as shark attack on whales or dolphins or attacks by members of the same species. Poisonous "red tides" will also affect marine mammals. Some strandings have been speculated to be related to anomalies in the magnetic field."

And another quote from Ketten....

Are mass strandings on the rise?
"That's a really good question. We certainly have more reports over time, and that's something a number of people are looking into. In Cape Cod there's been a slight increase in the last two years. But looking around the world, stranding reports seem to follow human populations. As beach areas become more popular—meaning more people going to beach and more people interested in whales and dolphins—you get more reports. You have to normalize data for increased interest and traffic, and it's not clear whether there are more strandings or just more reports".