Latest news with #Smass
BBC News
a day ago
- Science
- BBC News
Orkney mass stranding: Pregnant female among 23 dead whales
A pregnant female was among a pod of 23 pilot whales found dead after a mass stranding in whales were discovered on the Orkney island of Sanday on is thought they may have been dead for several days. Tests are being carried Neave-Webb, of Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (Smass), said the whales appeared to have been healthy, and that the cause of the incident may never be known. Ms Neave-Webb told BBC Radio Orkney she spent Sunday taking samples from the pod."We've been on the site basically taking as much information from each animal as we can," she said."They are fairly decomposed, they have obviously been dead a few days."We've been taking measurements. From that, we can get an idea of how healthy the animals are, how well fed they are." She said samples of tissue, skin and blubber would also be analysed."We can do genetics and find out how the different animals are related to each other," Ms Neave-Webb said."Twenty-three animals is a lot to get through. We do know one of them was a pregnant female."They had all live-stranded from the look of it, it's quite a remote area. Somebody has been walking there and found them."She said the samples would tell the researchers about the lives of the whales but it was difficult to tell what the cause of death was."They all looked in very, very good health," she said. "There's no animal that was showing any sign of injury, or any signs of disease."They all looked like they were in good nutritional health, none of them looked skinny, so there was nothing obvious going on, so we can rule that out." How unusual is the mass whale stranding on this island? Last summer, 77 pilot whales washed ashore on the same a dozen that were still alive were carcasses were later buried at multiple land sites, which were approved after tests were carried out to prevent any possible disturbance to archaeological sites."I've got colleagues in New Zealand and Australia and they see this happen quite frequently, unfortunately, so it does happen," Ms Neave-Webb said."Pilot whales are very prone to doing this, why they come into these areas we don't know, but they do seem to be very prone all over the world."She added: "We do know that the North Atlantic has a large population of pilot whales."It's unusual for Scotland, I will say, it is unusual to have two in such quick succession."The latest stranding is at a rocky beach, so access for possible disposal via towing out to water or by tractor would be whales may be left to decompose naturally.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Rescuers free whale trapped by rope off Skye
Volunteer rescuers have freed a humpback whale that had become entangled in rope at a Skye salmon farm. The animal was spotted in difficulty at Organic Sea Harvest's Invertote site in the north of the island on Thursday morning. British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) said the rope, which is anchored to the sea bed and has a buoy attached to it, was wrapped around the whale's head and left fin. The charity said the whale was exhausted and they were continuing to monitor it. Organic Sea Harvest said during the rescue it was noted the whale had previously been entangled and was carrying old ropes of a type not used on the fish farm. A spokesperson said: "It was this existing entangled rope which caught onto the farm moorings as it swam by. "Thankfully the BDMLR team were not only able to free the whale from the salmon farm, but they were also able to free it of the other ropes it had been carrying." Martin Boon, of BDMLR, told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme the rope was wrapped multiple times around the humpback's head and left fin. He said the charity followed a technique that was developed in the US, and used for the first time in Europe in 2011, to free entangled whales. Special knives attached to poles are used to cut the rope in a set sequence. The last cut finally frees the animal and avoids the risk of it still having some of the rope attached to it. Mr Boon said Organic Sea Harvest provided small inflatable boats to allow a BDMLR team to get close to the humpback. He said the rescue was "potentially risky". "Obviously it is humpback - they are big and powerful," he said. "If it thrashes about and it catches anybody in the team, that's not going to end well." BDMLR, which was set up 40 years ago, successfully rescued a humpback caught in creel ropes in Loch Fyne in Argyll on 4 November. But other whales have not been so lucky. In May 2023, a humpback whale that washed up in a Highland loch possibly died after becoming caught up in creel fishing lines, say experts. The animal's carcass was found on sand banks in Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve, near Golspie. Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (Smass) identified it as a juvenile female humpback whale. Other humpbacks have been found dead in East Lothian and Caithness following entanglements. These entanglements can involve creel fishing gear or ghost gear - rope and nets that have been lost or abandoned by fishing boats. A sperm whale that died after stranding on the Isle of Harris in November 2019 had a 100kg "litter ball" in its stomach. Fishing nets, rope, packing straps, bags and plastic cups were among the items discovered in a compacted mass during an investigation by Smass. BDMLR
