As authorities in Australia face the unhappy task of disposing of the bodies of hundreds of dead whales beached on Tasmania, a key question is what caused this week’s mass stranding.
As widely reported, nearly 400 long-finned pilot whales died after becoming beached at Macquarie Heads on Tasmania’s west coast.
It is the largest mass stranding recorded in Australia, although by no means the largest involving pilot whales: for example, a century ago, about 1,000 were beached in New Zealand.
Going back further, the fossil record indicates that mass strandings – which mostly affect dolphins, porpoises and toothed whales – have been happening for millions of years.
While they can be natural events, experts say human-induced chemical and noise pollution may also play a role today.
Globally, around 2,000 stranding events take place annually. Similar events are seen even in the UAE, with a dead killer whale or orca having been found off Ras Al Khaimah in 2008 after the animal died probably after getting lost.
Following the "sick leader" prompts mass deaths
According to Dr Andrew Brownlow, a veterinary surgeon who has been conducting post-mortems on stranded whales and other cetaceans for more than a decade, the “sick leader hypothesis” is one possible explanation for this week’s events in Tasmania, which have seen about 380 individuals die and several dozen helped into deeper waters by rescuers.
Pilot whales live in large matrilineal pods of adult females and their family members, and a leading animal may have approached the shore after becoming disoriented because it was in unwell or distressed.
“If you have a leader who, for whatever reason – disease or trauma or noise – if that animal decides to go in a particular direction, the others will follow,” said Dr Brownlow, who heads the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme in the UK and advises the International Whaling Commission on strandings.
“That’s where you have the horrific situation where you can get 400 to 500 animals on a beach. If you looked at these animals, you would find that 95 percent were healthy at the point at which they reached the beach.”
Noise of industry a threat to marine life
Local geography also often plays a part, with the creatures’ sonar navigation system struggling to identify a gently sloping shoreline.
“It’s very difficult for them to navigate near soft sand,” said Dr Brownlow. “It’s like us trying to navigate in a forest in the fog.”
Other factors, said Dr Brownlow, were noise from naval sonar and oil and gas exploration, which can disturb cetaceans and make them flee safer deep water to more hazardous shallow waters. Pollution can also cause animals to become ill and disoriented, while rough seas may also play a role.
“[Mass strandings] have been going on for as long as there’ve been animals like these in the sea, it would seem,” said Dr Brownlow.
“We don’t actually have to assume it’s because of something we’ve done, although it would be highly disingenuous of us to discount the possibility we’re somehow partly responsible for these type of events.”
Strandings could put some species in grave danger
Indeed, artificial causes could be causing an increase in strandings in some parts of the world. In the UK, for example, 4,896 whales, dolphins and porpoises died on beaches between 2011 and 2017, up 15 percent on the previous seven-year period.
“Reasons may include an increase in underwater noise sources, entanglement in fishing gear and plastic ingestion,” said Danny Groves, a spokesperson for the international charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
With the worldwide population of long-finned pilot whales numbering around one million, a mass stranding does not threaten the species, although many other cetaceans are much less abundant.
Andrew Baillie, cetacean strandings officer at the Natural History Museum in London, said it was important for people who had seen beached animals anywhere in the world to report them to the national strandings body.
“Pilot whales are not threatened; even a mass stranding is not going to be a conservation threat, but for rarer species, it’s worth us monitoring the strandings, and if we can get to it, we can take samples and try to find out why it’s stranded,” he said.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Bayern Munich v Real Madrid
When: April 25, 10.45pm kick-off (UAE)
Where: Allianz Arena, Munich
Live: BeIN Sports HD
Second leg: May 1, Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid
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Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
ENGLAND SQUAD
For first two Test in India Joe Root (captain), Jofra Archer, Moeen Ali, James Anderson , Dom Bess, Stuart Broad , Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Ben Foakes, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Dom Sibley, Ben Stokes, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes. Reserves James Bracey, Mason Crane, Saqib Mahmood, Matthew Parkinson, Ollie Robinson, Amar Virdi.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How Islam's view of posthumous transplant surgery changed
Transplants from the deceased have been carried out in hospitals across the globe for decades, but in some countries in the Middle East, including the UAE, the practise was banned until relatively recently.
Opinion has been divided as to whether organ donations from a deceased person is permissible in Islam.
The body is viewed as sacred, during and after death, thus prohibiting cremation and tattoos.
One school of thought viewed the removal of organs after death as equally impermissible.
That view has largely changed, and among scholars and indeed many in society, to be seen as permissible to save another life.
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Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
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Match info
What: Fifa Club World Cup play-off
Who: Al Ain v Team Wellington
Where: Hazza bin Zayed Stadium, Al Ain
When: Wednesday, kick off 7.30pm
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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