Pilot Whales Come Aground in New Zealand - Big Quake Coming?

Hi all,

there are many, many threads on ATS regarding a supposed link between Stranded Whales and Big Earthquakes. As far as im aware, there are no facts to prove this, but here's a fresh stranding of around 70 Whales in the south Island of New Zealand.

Dozens of long-finned pilot whales have stranded close to Triangle Flat on Farewell Spit in Nelson's Golden Bay

The mass stranding of about 70 whales last night followed the refloating of a single stranded whale yesterday.

It's absolutely devastating to see so many of these whales stranded but we'll do our best to save as many as we can,".

We are well accustomed to quakes here now, especially here in Christchurch, but the thought of another huge quake doesnt go down well.

Guess time will tell if these Whales can sense something we dont. I'm 100% certain that animals can definatly sense these things, as i've seen 1st hand my cat acting very strange before several of the large Earthquakes here in Christhcurch over the last Year.

It does make some sense that below water creatures would have very acute senses with pressure changes etc.

tvnz.co.nz...



EDIT - I should mention that there has been quite a bit of Earthquake activity in the last few days. We have had a 5.0, 5.2 etc

www.geonet.org.nz...

It will be interesting, how ever I remember a few years back here in Western Australia we had some beachings and if you looked closely they happened a few days apart from other beachings that occurred slowly from Tasmania around our coast line - I strongly suspect Military Subs are to blame for some of the mass strandings.

reply to post by mazzroth


yes, there are many different theories and possibly each one of them has some effect. From Sonar, to Tides etc. But, there have been several documented strandings before big quakes as well. Lets hope its not the latter.

;-)

I hope nothing happens.

However, I was checking BBC and this came up on recent news:

11 Dead in Hot Air Balloon Crash in NZ

reply to post by grantbeed

Before I even opened the thread I thought to myself, I bet this was on Farewell Spit. The reason is that stranding events are actually fairly common there. Here are a few more instances of this occurring that didn't take too long to find.

The survival prospects for 34 pilot whales stranded on tidal flats about 2 kilometres off the tip of Farewell Spit in Golden Bay worsened tonight.

Department of Conservation Golden Bay area manager John Mason said the whales, trapped in the shallows, had moved further in towards the spit on the midday high tide.

Time running out for stranded whales (15/11/2011)

A pod of 82 pilot whales has beached in Golden Bay, west of Nelson.
One baby whale and nine others have died, and the others face an uncomfortable night with Department of Conservation (DOC) staff unable to attempt to refloat the whales until tomorrow, DOC spokeswoman Trish Grant said.

82 whales beached in Golden Bay (4/2/2011)

The Spit has become famous for whale strandings. In 1991, 325 whales came ashore and there are pictures of this in the Visitors Centre and the skeleton of a whale is displayed outside the Visitor Centre.

Farewell Spit

An auntie of mine lives in Takaka, Golden Bay, and has helped with strandings on numerous occasions in the past. And from what I've heard, this is neither rare, nor a recent phenomena. I can't recall any of these ever being linked to an earthquake in the past, so I do not think there is any real link between strandings and quakes.

I certainly hope these are not due to any man made influences either, as these are beautiful creatures and I would hate for them to be harmed. But my opinion is that these have always been a natural occurrence, although no-one is quite sure why.