whale tragedy

[forevergreen]

Not far from where i live is a beach called aberafon in south whales. humpback whales are quite common in north whales but it seem s a young whale about 2 or 3 years strayed down south across the tracks of some kind of ship becuase it had one of its fins ripped off and a gash on its body.
it was found by the coast gaurd and dragged ashore for an autopsy.

I cant understand why this whale came down south and got its self killed its a very sad thing to see one of these amazing creatures dead on a beach. But the even sadder thing is its not the first mammal
to be killed here just two days before we had a dead bottle nosed dolphin!
I just thought id put this post on here to remind people about whales being killed not just by the japanese but also by british and other eurpian ships aswell.

[naturelover]

thats so sad,its bad enough when they ground them selves but thats sort of self inflicted,what do you think is killing these beautiful creatures,this world dosnt get any better dose it.

[demicav]

It's tragic and I understand your reasons for wanting to remind people about these deaths in British waters. Cetaceans suffer from so many problems and conflicts with people.

[kml]

That is terrible news.The waters around the welsh coast are teaming with marine life and need better protecting.So many deaths could be avoided.
Have you informed the bdmlr? They may be interested to know.

[forevergreen]

Originally Posted by kml

That is terrible news.The waters around the welsh coast are teaming with marine life and need better protecting.So many deaths could be avoided.
Have you informed the bdmlr? They may be interested to know.

Uh im quite young im not sure what that is... bdmlr but yes if you know any contact details i should probably tell them.

[kml]

Sorry I should have been more specific bdmlr stands for British divers marine life rescue they rescue any marine animals and would also pass on any recordings that would be needed.

[Forestknights]

the British divers marine life rescue do some excellent work. We should support them more. Also the WDS work tirelessly to conserve marine mammals.

I had the pleasure of paddling with a seal in Chichester harbour over Christmas.

[zan]

This is quite common now I think, with a lot of marine mammals simply unable to cope with the amount of noise in the oceans now due to shipping\military sonar etc. there's been a fair bit in the news over the last couple of years that seems to resurface every so often in the bbc.

potentially, since it was a young whale, it strayed into the shipping lane (with or without its pod) and got confused by the engine noise. Use of sonar (for mapping the seabed or military use for example) is another one that is suspected to confuse marine mammals and several strandings have been found apparently suffering from 'the bends' - tiny bubbles forming in the blood stream and tissues. In human divers this happens if you ascend too fast. whether this is caused by sonar or not I don't know, but last I heard it seemed the most likely option. I actually read something today about an underwater survey getting stopped because it would disturb resident whales.

It's an interesting topic to look into

Zan