After the majority of the 160 pilot whales that stranded on the west coast of Australia on Thursday were rescued, the marine mammals have not yet returned to the coast. Vanessa Pirotta, a whale expert, described this as a positive result in an interview with 7News on Friday. Employees of the Ministry of Species Conservation, veterinarians and hundreds of volunteers had worked tirelessly to save the animals in distress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They held the heads of the stranded whales, which were in shallow water, above water to allow them to breathe. Eventually, most of the animals managed to get back into deeper waters. Unfortunately, all help came too late for around 30 pilot whales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Friday, a warning was issued about sharks in the region around the small town of Dunsborough, 250 kilometres south of Perth. Sharks are often attracted to the carcasses of whales. There were also continued concerns that the rescued animals could potentially turn back and strand again – a phenomenon that has been observed in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mass stranding of whales remains a mystery to researchers to this day. According to one theory, sick or injured animals get lost and the others follow them. Pilot whales, which often travel in large groups, form particularly close bonds with each other. Experts also believe it is possible that whales lose their orientation due to acoustic pollution, such as sonar equipment from ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the stranded whales was a baby. Some helpers burst into tears when they saw the dead whales. However, Vanessa Pirotta emphasised that these 30 or so specimens would make a valuable contribution to science. It is important to study the behaviour of whales before a stranding in order to understand why entire herds move towards the shore. Because once they are on land, the clock starts ticking – and we don’t know what happened before that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After the majority of the 160 pilot whales that stranded on the west coast of Australia on Thursday were rescued, the marine mammals have not yet returned to the coast. Vanessa Pirotta, a whale expert, described this as a positive result in an interview with 7News on Friday. Employees of the Ministry of Species Conservation, […]\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"yoast_head":"\n