Stranded whales - are they trying to tell us something? More than coincidence?

Mankind has long enjoyed a special relationship with whales. They are highly developed beings with very large & complex brains. It has been clearly shown scientifically that the whales have a brain proportionately larger than Humans & in some ways far more developed, that they have clearly identifiable, highly evolved emotions such as joy, compassion, humor & emotional self control, that they live in large complex social groups that live in great harmony.

Whales are often associated with dreams and people who have swum with the dolphins often describe the experience as if being in a dream. The ancient bond between dolphins and humans bridges two worlds - the worlds of sea and land. The strength of this interspecies relationship is so powerful that dolphins and humans have even risked their lives to help each other in real life as well as myth.

Indigenous peoples especially have long considered whales to be sacred.

SEVERAL hundred mourners turned up at a funeral for a whale in central Vietnam where the animal is revered and considered a creature of god. The corpse of the 5m whale was discovered off Dong Tri beach in Quang Nam province a day earlier, a police officer said. Villagers brought the two-tonne mammal ashore and buried it in a traditional ceremony symbolising their respect.

"Local people believe the whale is a sacred animal because every time they bury a dead whale, the weather changes and it rains," the police officer said. "We started worshipping 'Sir Fish' in the 1950s, when it saved and brought ashore a fisherman after his boat capsized in a storm," said Nguyen Minh Hung.

"Sir Fish always helps fishermen in danger and warns us about it. Every time we see him near our port, it means there will be a storm or big rains, so we stay home and don't go fishing."

In Australian there is a tribe of Aborigines known as "People of the Whale". The Mirning believe that at the beginning of time a great white whale spirit called Jiderra came down from the Milky Way with the seven sisters dancing on his back, to create the earth and sky. It is at this sacred place, now known as the Head of the Bight, that some of the Mirning have communed with the whales for over a hundred thousand years. It is said that there is a prophecy that states that the coming together of Whales and Humanity will signal a great change in the people…bringing them back into balance with nature and therefore with God.

Whalesong Dreaming by David Jimenz

According to the Maori people the White Whale is their guardian. What people are to the land, the whale is to the sea. When the first ancestors made the long journey from Hawaiiki to New Zealand, whales led the boat to New Zealand.

I think all of us have enjoyed the word-of-mouth success of "WhaleRider." The movie is based on the Ngati Parou myth of Paikea who believed that their ancestor came to New Zealand from Hawaiiki on the back of a whale. Whales are sacred to them and a memorable scene in the film is where the whole village is frantically trying to save a pod of stranded whales that have come to shore in response to a call for help from the young girl heroine. The elder of the tribe believes that this signals an apocalyptic end to his tribe.

If you were to ask the Maori elders, what would they have to say about all the whale strandings in the past year? More than coincidence? A warning?

"Whale Rider" (Niki Caro)

So what's up with all the whale strandings around the world in the past year? Are the whales trying to tell us something?

• Whales beach again in NZ after rescue attempt:On October 19th, 2002 19 pilot whales died on Friday on New Zealand's North Island having stranded themselves for the second time in two days, conservation workers said. The mammals were "very, very distressed," Department of Conservation spokesperson Wanda Vivequin told Reuters. "
• On December 29th twenty adult female sperm whales were found washed up on a remote Australian beach but wildlife officials yesterday were unable to explain the third such mass stranding in the same area in a month. Scientists said it was impossible to tell if the mass beaching was linked to a huge earthquake recorded between Tasmania and Antarctica last week.
• From November 28, 2004 to January 7, 2005, there have been recorded incidents of around 200 whale beachings on the coasts of the island of Tasmania, 240 km off the south-eastern coast of the Australian continent. This is an unprecedented number and has caused widespread concern.
• On November 30, 2004, Australian Senator and Green Party Leader, Bob Brown, made a statement saying that ocean seismic tests to search for gas and oil should be stopped until the whale migration season had ended. His call followed the deaths of 19 long-finned pilot whales which beached at Tasmania's Maria Island the previous day. Just 24 hours earlier, 73 long-finned pilot whales and 25 bottlenose dolphins had been beached and had died.
• Senator Brown said in both cases seismic tests, involving so-called sound bombing of ocean floors to test for oil and gas, were carried out in the days before the whales were stranded.

"There is growing evidence that such activities may impact on whales and dolphins, but research data is inconclusive," he said.

"However, the precautionary principle should apply and the tests, until shown to be safe, should stop - at least in whale migration seasons."

• At least 37 whales beached themselves and died along the North Carolina shore on January 16 and 16, earlier this month soon after Navy vessels on a deep-water training mission off the coast used powerful sonar as part of the exercise. Although the Navy says any connection between the strandings and its active sonar is "unlikely" -- because the underwater detection system was used more than 200 miles from where the whales beached themselves -- it is cooperating with other federal agencies probing a possible link. Government fisheries officials, as well as activists for whales, say the fact that three species of whales died in the incident suggests that sonar may have been the cause.

Some of the leading theories as to why whales beach themselves include failure of geomagnetic reckoning, following a sick leader, parasitic infection, seeking land in time of extreme stress, chasing prey aggressively, and gentle shelving beaches that disrupt sonar navigation.

While no-one can come up with a definitive answer there does seem to be solid evidence that some of our human activities are impacting upon the everyday world of whales and dolphins in negative ways. Sonar tests involved in testing for oil, navy ship exercises have been shown to impact the very developed hearing of whales.

According to Mark Kaufman of the Washington Post, July 14, 2004:

WASHINGTON — Residents of Hanalei Bay on Kaua'i woke up last weekend to a distressing sight: As many as 200 melon-headed whales, a small and sociable species that usually stays in deep waters, were swimming in a tight circle as close as 100 feet from the beach, showing clear signs of stress.

To keep the animals from beaching, residents kept a vigil all day and through the night, until a flotilla of kayaks and outrigger canoes could be assembled to herd the animals back out to sea. So far, only one young whale has been found dead.

But among increasingly worried whale advocates and researchers, the event set off immediate alarm bells: Melon-headed whales are not known to beach themselves, and nothing like this mass stranding close call has occurred in Hawai'i for 150 years.

Several hours after the Hanalei Bay episode began, it was learned that a six-ship Navy fleet 20 miles out to sea had begun a sonar exercise the morning that the melon-headed whales headed toward shore.

So if we enjoyed the film "Whale Rider", and we like the idea of "swimming with the dolphins" shouldn't we also be willing to look at our behavior and how it might be impacting on our neighbors in the ocean? I believe that we are all connected and if dolphins and whales cannot speak for themselves then who will speak for them?

The Art of Saving Whales by Wyland

And how's this for uncanny? Indian Professor predicts earthquake based on whale strandings

On December 4, three weeks before the earthquake off Indonesia, an Indian academic, Dr Arunachalam Kumar, professor of anatomy at Kasturba Medical College at Mangalore in Karnataka, posted a note about a recent whale-stranding in Tasmania, and its possible implications, on a "listserve", an e-mail distributor, hosted by Princeton University.

About 120 whales stranded and died in Australia at the end of November and 50 pilot whales died on a Coromandel beach at the same time.

"It is my observation, confirmed over the years, that mass suicides of whales and dolphins that occur sporadically all over the world, are in some way related to change and disturbances in the electromagnetic field co-ordinates and possible realignments of geotectonic plates thereof," he wrote. "Tracking the data and plotting the locales of tremors and earthquakes, I am reasonably certain that major earthquakes usually follow within a week or two of mass breaching of cetacians [sic]. I have noted with alarm, the last week report of such mass deaths of marine mammals in an Australian beachside. I will not be surprised if within a few days a massive quake hits some part of the globe. The interrelationship between the unusual 'death-wish' of pods of whales and its inevitable aftermath, the earthquake, may need a further impassioned and unbiased looking into."

FURTHER READING

• A Theory of Whale Stranding
• Robin Good has an indepth look at the connection between whale strandings and sonar testing for oil: Underwater Seismic Testing Linked to Whale Beachings
• Whale Stranding in N.C followed Navy Sonar Use

Comments

[Robert]

I note that Dr. Kumar's prediction did *NOT* happen, as the big earthquake occurred more than two weeks after the stranding. Nit-picking? No, I don't think so. If we allow such predictions to go open-ended, then eventually they will come true.

I'd be more impressed with Senator Brown were he not with the Green party. It seems to me that all the world's ills have a human cause, according to them. That doesn't mean he is not right, it just taints his opinion, in my opinion.

A good way to determine if human activity such as seismographs and sonar is a cause for beaching is to look into the past prior to these inventions and see if beachings occurred, and in what numbers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for saving whales. I just believe we should not automatically assume it is human activity that is the cause.

[Josse]

Robert,
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.

To clarify - Dr Kumar’s prediction DID occur. After a large stranding of whales in Australia and New Zealand he predicted, based on prior experience, that a major seismic even would occur in the region within 1-2 weeks – this was precisely when the underwater activity leading to the Tsunami took place.

In the case of the strandings in Australia, North Carolina, and Kauai there was navy sonar testing going on in the vicinity at the time. It doesn’t take too much thought to realize that this kind of testing would have a damaging effect on marine life with highly sensitive developed hearing systems.

But there is also direct scientific empirical evidence of this effect from USA Today

Following a beaching of 16 whales in the Bahamas in 2000 during navy sonar testing, joint study by the Navy and U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that, “Tactical mid-range frequency sonar aboard U.S. Navy ships that were in use during the sonar exercise in question was the most plausible source of this acoustic or impulse trauma”

While I agree that one shouldn’t jump to conclusions too quickly, when a U.S. government agency draws this conclusion, in my mind there is certainly enough evidence to show a link between sonar testing and whale beachings. It would be tragic to bury our heads in the sand waiting for more empirical evidence and more whale deaths before making a serious attempt to address this problem.

[Diary Thinker]

I like your 2005 reading recommendations, I already have a copy of the motorcycle diaries : but I think it is good that they have reissued it, for new readers : I have not seen the film yet.

[Robert]

I guess I'm missing it. Kumar's prediction was posted Dec. 4th, and it seems that the beachings occurred at the end of November. But, the earthquake occurred on Dec. 26, more than three weeks later.

If there were geomagnetic disturbances at the time of the beachings, these can be verified. The planet's magnetic field is constantly monitored by multiple entities. You can even hear the measurments via WWV radio (run by the National Bureau of Standards). This must surely be what he means, as "electromagnetic fields" bounce off of water, except at extremely low frequencies. Changes to the "electromagnetic field coordinates" doesn't mean anything, as coordinates are artificial and somewhat arbitrary. Changes to global EM fields happen all the time, due to radio waves, and are also affected more by the sun than they are by tectonic plates. If someone was able to prove a link between sun spots and earthquakes, there would be a Nobel prize waiting for them.

Finally, sonar works on sound waves, not on radio waves. If whales are using sonar to navigate, or if (I would propose more likely) sonar gives them the equivalent of an ear ache or headache, then I can understand their duress. Note, too, that many fish have "sensors" along their sides, which enables them to detect motion, even in the dark. But I would suspect these work on subsonic frequencies.

Getting back to Kumar's prediction, do whales use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate the huge distances they travel during their migration? Don't know, myself.

[Peasblossom]

Eh Robert. What don't you get man! You should stop and think for a minute! Here is what you said:

"I guess I'm missing it. Kumar's prediction was posted Dec. 4th, and it seems that the beachings occurred at the end of November. But, the earthquake occurred on Dec. 26, more than three weeks later."

That is exactly what Josse reported - namely

1. The whale beachings occurred
2. On the basis of the beachings, Dr Kumar predicted a seismic event in 1-2 weeks
3. The Earthquake occurred - 3 weeks later

OK - so it was 3 weeks later, not 1-2 as predicted. But still a very interesting coincidence of events.