whales & dolphins beached

[eve]

Volunteers worked frantically to save whales and dolphins in Tasmania yesterday after more than 100 died in mass beachings on two offshore islands. Local people working with National Parks and Wildlife officers rescued 27 whales at Maria Island, off north-western Tasmania, by sliding the animals - which weigh up to a tonne each - on to tarpaulins and dragging them into deep water. They used heavy machinery to dig trenches in the sand to make the task easier. But the island's rugged beaches are littered with giant carcasses. On Sunday, a total of 97 pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins were found dead on King Island, east of Tasmania, after a mysterious mass stranding. Yesterday, a separate pod of 53 whales, 19 of them dead, was found on Maria Island.

Tests are to be done on the dead mammals to find the reasons for the two beachings, which follow the deaths of 120 whales and dolphins off Tasmania last year. Some scientists speculated at the time that the animals might have been fleeing predators, such as killer whales. On the other hand there are suggestions that drilling in the sea bed within the vicinity may also have contributed.

[tails4wagging]

How sad! I should think it was the drilling that did it, probibly throwing off their sonic communications. Poor souls were probibly terrified!

[eve]

You're probably right. Conservationists have raised concerns about the impact of underwater seismic testing on marine life after more than 150 whales and dolphins died in strandings in Tasmania and New Zealand this week. Democrats leader Lyn Allison thinks the mass strandings should create enough concern for the Government to ban the use of high-intensity naval sonar in Australian waters until more research is completed. She said her most immediate concern is the naval exercises that will soon be carried out close to the Great Barrier Reef. "We've seen the Government welcome US naval ships and we know that they have sonar devices," she said.

But the Federal Government has dismissed the Democrats' call to suspend the use of active naval sonar until more is known about its effect on marine mammals.

[Kevster]

'Whales and dolphins threatened by naval sonar, says UN report devices
By Daniel Howden
Published: 25 November 2005

High-intensity naval sonar poses a serious threat to whales, dolphins and porpoises that depend on sound to survive, says a report by the United Nations Environment Programme.'

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...icle329181.ece