- HOBART, Australia (AFP) --
More than 100 pilot whales and 10 dolphins have died in a mysterious mass
beaching on the coast of Australia's island state of Tasmania, local officials
said yesterday.
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- Tasmanian Environment Minister Bryan Green told Parliament
that the carcasses of the ocean mammals had been found on Monday by an
abalone diver on a remote peninsula off the state's south-west coast called
Point Hibbs.
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- Experts who flew to the site yesterday said they counted
110 long-finned pilot whales and 10 bottle-nosed dolphins, all of which
had been dead for several days.
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- The mass beaching of whales has long mystified scientists,
with theories about the phenomena ranging from diseases that upset the
mammals' internal navigation system to herd behaviour in which large numbers
of whales blindly follow a leader into trouble.
-
- But Mr David Pemberton, the curator of vertebrate zoology
at the Tasmanian Museum who spoke to scientists at the beaching site, said
the fact that both whales and dolphins were involved, implied they became
stranded while fleeing an attacker or during a 'feeding frenzy'.
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- He suggested that the whales and dolphins had been involved
in a 'frenetic feeding frenzy' that took them too close to shore or had
been driven to the beach by killer whales or other predators.
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- Scientists from the state environment department and
the museum were investigating the incident, officials said.
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- 'This type of event is always the cause of much sadness,'
Mr Green told Parliament.
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- Long-finned pilot whales are found in cold temperate
and sub-polar waters.
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- While mainly a deep ocean species, pilot whales will
enter coastal and shallow waters in search of food and are regularly involved
in beaching incidents, sometimes involving hundreds of them.
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- Copyright @ 2003 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights
reserved.
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- http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/techscience/story/0,4386,222018,00.html
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