The Marine Animal Response Society in Nova Scotia says it’s looking into the stranding of 16 pilot whales on Sable Island and hopes information collected from the Parks Canada site will help it better understand the natural phenomenon.
The society, which is a registered charity that focuses on protecting marine life, says it was contacted by Parks Canada on June 10.
A member of the Sable Island Institute had spotted the whales during a routine beach survey on Sable Island National Park Reserve, about 290 kilometres southeast of Halifax.
Some of the whales had already died.
“Parks Canada reported the incident to the Marine Animal Response Society (MARS). Unfortunately, due to the location and state of the animals, intervention in this case was not possible,” Parks Canada told Global News.
MARS says the area was too remote for intervention, and the remaining animals died shortly afterwards.
“It’s rather difficult to get there and they have limited personnel who are on the island and limited equipment. So we were able to, through the great efforts of Parks Canada — which we’re very grateful — they were able to help do some documentation and be able to collect some samples,” said Tonya Wimmer, co-executive director of MARS.
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“But unfortunately, with the timing of when you can get out there — when there’s funding for planes and things — the animals would be too far gone by the time we could actually get a team out.”
She adds that pilot whales are “not tiny by any stretch of the imagination” and can be around six metres long and weigh several tons. That contributes to the difficulty in reaching them.
“Sable Island itself has other logistical challenges in terms of currents, in terms of other predators that are in those waters, like grey seals and sharks and things like that,” she said.
Wimmer says it’s hoped that the samples collected by Parks Canada will help their team better understand marine mammal health and the factors that contribute to strandings.
According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, it’s unclear why whales strand. The department notes on its website that stranding is most common among “very social toothed whales,” such as pilot whales.
“Whales may strand because they are lost. Or perhaps one ill member of a group strands, and the others have followed. Necropsies of stranded whales have revealed that some were sick or injured. Some had parasite infections in their heads, perhaps making them confused. But many others seemed to have nothing wrong with them,” its website states.
Wimmer adds that there are “many times that the cause is unknown.”
“Even just their social behaviour is enough that if one goes, the rest go,” she said.
“And often, there’s lots of theories that get put out there in terms of disease, in terms of noise, in terms of other elements. And in many cases, we can’t tell. If it is a healthy group of animals that ended up on a beach, there could be multiple reasons why that may have happened.”
MARS has a hotline to report stranded, injured or entangled marine animals in the Maritime provinces. It can be reached at 1-866-567-6277.
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