25 whales swam in....25 whales never left alive.

Location: Kice Island Area, Florida

It seems there is a bit of a mystery here. A large Whale die-off in what seems to be circumstances without obvious cause?

Six days after mysteriously swimming into the Naples Bay, 25 pilot whales are dead and it's up to these marine biologists to find out why. "The animals did appear thin, there were no external signs of human interaction that we could see, we weren't able to examine everybody inside, but no obvious signs of human interaction," said Gretchen Lovewell with Mote Marine Labratory. Experts from several agencies spent all day Friday on Kice Island, studying the whales.

It's certainly being looked into and this appears on RSOE's main index, of all places. I figured this would be of particular interest to share as we're seeing so many changes happening around our planet, with die-offs coming to show up in some places without much to say why.

It could also take months before biologists get the results of the necropsies and find out why these whales died. But new tonight, after speaking with the Navy, NOAA can now rule out sonar as a cause of their confusion and stranding. "Sometimes a stranding happens and you can't find a straight answer.

RSOE Event Index

Does anyone live out near this to add any local insight or info? I hate hearing whales dying in weird circumstances ..and the story does note this 'just happens' at times. Particularly, it noted, with Pilot Whales apparently.

Still.... 'Just happens' is a hard way to explain this, as the above story seems to indicate. The experts are a bit stumped for anything obvious?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000




Oh no...!

It is awful hearing things like this. How bizarre. I am not sure what could have caused it.. I will be awaiting any updates of the necropsies and hope that there is nothing sinister going on...

May they glide through the cosmos with stars in their eyes....

I see what you mean Wrabbit.Things don't usually happen for no reason.Do you think things like Fukushima or the massive oil spill in the gulf may have anything to do with this?Maybe they suicided themselves rather than live with the poisons which we ineptly have been dumping in THEIR environment.I probably would.

YOU suck Corexit down YOUR blowhole and well see how YOU survive......

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


When I saw "Naples Bay" I thought they meant the "Bay of Naples" for Naples, Italy, and was going to say a huge die off in that bay would not surprise me considering how polluted the Bay of Naples is over there. I used to live there, and the water laping at the docks was........orange.

All sorts of things are just dumped in the bay there, and you have to get out away from it towards like the islands of Capri or Ishica to see clear water again.

But then I saw "Florida" and new they were talking about Naples, FL here in the states instead.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


It could be something to do with military setting off sonar or whatever it is they do in the water that disorients and drives away life... they are so sensitive...

Just to let out-of-staters know not to get their knickers in a twist, this is SO common for Pilot whales compared to other species. I'm not that far north of Naples, up in Tampa, not far from several area aquariums & marine institutes (Mote Marine down in Sarasota is well respected) and this has yet to hit the news as anything major. If/when it does, it'll probably be a blip mentioned in passing. Seriously, Pilot whales have a penchant for beachings in quantity, and have been doing this down here for a very long time. 25 is just not that many at once considering one of the more notable events decades ago on the east coast saw several hundred do this.

I am pretty sure that somehow mankind had something to do with this. There could be hundreds of reasons for this but only eighty of them would be somehow caused by man..... So there is still a twenty percent chance the cause of this event could be natural.

I wrote up a post about the Florida Bay event in December, here. I'll quote the post for this thread. Hope it helps clarify a little for the knee-jerk prone (note the Flemish event I mention)

Nyiah
The size of the pod is larger than normal, but this really is not uncommon to have marine mammals toss up the white flag or make a wrong turn at Albuquerque, on either coast here. Back in October, for example, a sperm wale beached itself in Madeira Beach (west coast, near me here) In Tampa Bay, a huge Bryde's whale turned up dead in 2009. Although, if I remember correctly, baleens beach themselves with less frequency than toothed whales (like Pilots) That's a interesting factor to keep in mind.

Pilot whales seem to have a penchant for it, to be honest. There were beachings of pods in 2012, 2011, and all throughout the 90's that I'd heard of growing up here. The most infamous beaching was in 1977, with about 200 pilot whales taking a a detour up the Ft George River near Jacksonville. A huge number of them died there and it makes the Everglades stranding look meh. Here's a paper on that 1977 mass stranding.

I'm going to disagree with the east coast poster above, and say it probably has much less to do with the military, and much more to do with their social structure whether or not illness is not present. Monkey-see, money-do mentality, Oooh-shiny mentality, don't-question-your-leader mentality. Dunno, I don't speak whale, but the long history of whale beachings precedes our sonar & pollution contributions to the waters. The Flemish coast has a 500+ year history of beachings, for example (or are we going to blame yet-to-exist sonar & weird lights for that, too?) So it's not like it's something new, but dumping contaminants certainly wouldn't help any. If mercury and other heavy metals would bork a human brain, why does anyone think another species in immune to the effects? It's probably not the sole reason, but shouldn't be ignored if we're creating mentally compromised species because we're pigs.

I'd keep googling for other recent history beaching examples, but holy crap, article overload from this pod's beaching is insane. If anyone knows any tricks to wading through it for other events, be my guest.

reply to post by Nyiah


Thank you... I appreciate your information added to the thread. A local's perspective is always helpful!

In this case it seems, it's as interesting to learn it's not uncommon as it would be to learn that it was.

reply to post by Nyiah


Nice article! Didnt know it was so common...

Well... time to stop calling them "PILOT" whales then, aye?

EDIT: Or wait... maybe thats why they're called Pilot Whales... because they always manage to find their way and end up on a beach somewhere... which is good for a pilot, not so for a whale, but still it makes this weird sense now.

stirling
YOU suck Corexit down YOUR blowhole and well see how YOU survive......

Corexit???? I'm not defending the chemical, mind you, but way to jump the gun with rush to judgement, huh? How about pilot whales have been beaching long before corexit, how about Navy depth sounding/sonar experimentation, how about lots and lots of other possibilities????
T50

Point is, we don't really get anywhere solving anything just slapping a convenient blame label on anything….doesn't solve a goddamn thing….