9/27/2004: Beached pygmy whale calf

Sad one here. This is a pygmy whale calf, and it is dying here.
Too young to survive, unweaned, two of them beached themselves
in Palm Beach Florida, for unknown reasons. Ahead of the storm.

It was put down; the woman here is just trying to comfort it.

It even looks sad -- poor thing.

Looks like 2 beached whales in that photo.

We have discovered the secret ingredient to Gatorade.

that picture is interesting in so many different ways

Now go to a major problem only recently discovered. Once whales could communicate maybe as much as half way across the ocean. But man is now dumping so much noise into the oceans that it already is known to cause damage to some whales brains. It is suspected that some noise sources are so loud that ocean mammals now become separated. This being especially problematic for the calves of whales who no longer can find their mother.

Most destructive is a new NATO sonar that is repeatedly suspected to cause mass beachings even 50 miles away. This frequency sonar is said to be the best sonar yet. However it uses the same frequencies that ocean mammals use - at power levels destructive to those animals. The Navy has agreed to limit their use of this sonar.

Other noise sources include noise created by new, larger ships. Yes, a secret to making shipping less costly is to produce less noise - put more energy into moving ships by producing less noise. However, ship technology is instead just producing more power for bigger ships. No major effort is known to reduce shipping noise on these larger ships. Dead mammals don't cost anything. Oil is still too cheap. Research and development costs money when MBAs are the primary decision makers.

And so we must ask why these whales are dying? Disease? Or man-made? The current thinking is that we cannot prove it is man-made. Therefore it must be from something else.

An old Star Trek story parodied the problem. Too many high warp spacecraft could disintegrate the fabric of space. There are always consequences to what we do. More power is never an ideal solution. Like it or not, the oceans are becoming a new treasured parkland that we must learn more about - or lose its benefits. Is this but a canary in the coalmine? Either we use science, or we do as George Jr does - consult the bible.

Whatever

Beachings or strandings as people in the industry call them have happened since before recorded time. There is no evidence it is more prevolent now than ever before and only heresay and questionable motives tie it to shipping.

It is true that certain frequency sonar does though and that frequency corresponds directly with the shockwaves created by an earthquake on the ocean floor though the range is miniscule in comparison.

Here is a well written article that discusses strandings and likely causes.

Seaquakes yielding the equivalent of 1-kiloton are common in the backyard of whales -- about 10,000 magnitude 3.5 or greater events occur every year somewhere along the thousands of kilometers of mid-oceanic ridges where oceanic toothed whales and dolphins reside. In fact, in support of this theory, only the species that live in these seismically active waters mass strand themselves consistently.

Solo strandings such as this one may just be the result of an unintelligent creature making a poor decision when chasing prey too deep or ascending too fast.

Blaming man for any and all unexplained tragic natural phenomena is bunk. I'm sure it's possible to find someone to blame those 10,000 earthquakes on man also.

TW could probably find a way to blame George Jr. for them... ;)

George told me it's God's will.
Welcome to the Cellar, Target. :)

Anyone remember that famous vid a few years back where they tried to blow up the dead whale?

They could probably get the job done here with an m–80 or two.

But the whale does look sad. Who knows what happened?

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

George told me it's God's will.
Welcome to the Cellar, Target. :)

Thanks for the welcome.

I had to read your post twice because the first time I read it as;

God told me it's George Will.

Same thing, they're interchangeable. :lol:

Hey, here's an idea...whale beachings are both naturally occuring AND man-made! Just like global warming...

*puts that can of worms down and dives behind a blast wall*

Target wrote:

Solo strandings such as this one may just be the result of an unintelligent creature making a poor decision when chasing prey too deep or ascending too fast.

Blaming man for any and all unexplained tragic natural phenomena is bunk. I'm sure it's possible to find someone to blame those 10,000 earthquakes on man also.

An UNWEANED animal was chasing prey? Huh? And your use of the word "unintelligent" is a bit odd. Unintelligent according to who? We don't even know the half of what these animals are capable of.

Yeah I was going to use 'dumb' but that might offend some rednecks sisters.

Will you argue that people are more intelligent than whales? People do stupid things that cause themselves harm. Is it not imaginable that a creature of less intelligence might do the same thing?

Some animals that are considered to be highly intelligent kill their offspring. Is that a capability you have considered?

Target wrote:

Will you argue that people are more intelligent than whales? People do stupid things that cause themselves harm. Is it not imaginable that a creature of less intelligence might do the same thing?

People are more intelligent in some ways than animals such as whales. No, a whale can't write a novel or program a computer, but there's a helluva lot of things animals can do that people can't. I'm still amazed at dogs and their sense of smell. It may not be that they are more intelligent than humans, but in that particular respect they are superior to us. I know almost zero about whales, but I'm guessing they're superior to humans in certain ways as well. To blame a whale beaching itself solely on the animal's "stupidity" is, in my opinion, unintelligent.

Target wrote:

Some animals that are considered to be highly intelligent kill their offspring. Is that a capability you have considered?

Intelligence has nothing to do with the ability, desire or perceived need to kill.

Target wrote:

God told me it's George Will.

Even George Wills has problems with some of what George Jr is doing to this country.

Target wrote:

Beachings or strandings as people in the industry call them have happened since before recorded time. There is no evidence it is more prevolent now than ever before and only heresay and questionable motives tie it to shipping.

It is true that certain frequency sonar does though and that frequency corresponds directly with the shockwaves created by an earthquake on the ocean floor though the range is miniscule in comparison.

Good reasoning until we apply numbers. Junk science reasoning hates numbers. Since an underwater earthquake of a few seconds every so many years creates noise, then new sonar continuously, so much closer to mammal as to have higher dB levels, and being used continuously instead does not do any animal damage. Sorry. Even the US Navy conceded rather quickly that some of the mass mammal stranding were probably a result of their new sonar. That the resulting brain damage to some mammal brains may have been a direct consequence of their new and more powerful sonar. Sorry I have to add some facts and numbers to your speculations.

The real quesiton is not whether noise is causing that problem. Only extremists without facts would deny that. The real question is how much worse will it get, what will be the ultimate consequence if we don't deal with it, and how easily can the problem be solved. After all, more efficient ships should also make less ocean noise. Notice the difference. Asking questions based upon science verses speculation based upon political agenda and junk science reasoning.

The question really has become one of - is this the canary in a coal mine? These same people who would deny a potential ocean noise problem also deny that six of the seven major world fisheries are in serious danger of collapsing or have already failed. It helps to first learn facts before listening to Rush Limbaugh and personal biases.

You know what? It's still really sad. Death is a natural, beautiful part of life, but I hate to see a baby anything die.

I'm with you there Brianna, I hate seeing any baby animal suffer so much. I love watching animal documentaries (always watching Animal Planet on Foxtel), but I still cringe when I see any baby animal being killed or dying, be it natural or caused my us horrible humans. Especially hate seeing baby elephants being killed or dying. :(
Poor little whale. :bawling:

Can't that lady push the whale out in the surf and then climb on her. I saw that Whale Rider movie and it really worked!

Except in Whale rider, the person wasn't the whale sized being of the two...

chrisinhouston wrote:

Looks like 2 beached whales in that photo.

that's cold.

but true..