제 16 호 What Is the Cause of the Whale Beaching?
Kicker: OPINION
What Is the Cause of the Whale Beaching?
Su-young Kim, Reporter
Australian authorities said on September 21st that 230 pilot whales were stranded on the west coast of Tasmania. Countless whales were leaving the sea and dying on the beach. But this wasn’t the only case of whales that were stranded and dying. A total of 730 whales were found stranded in Australia and New Zealand, with 250 on Chatham Island east of New Zealand and 250 on Pitt Island, 30 kilometers from Chatham Island. Experts describe the phenomenon of numerous whales rushing to the beach by building a herd, and the word stranded means an unintended accident. Pilot whales are the biggest dolphins among them. Its body length reaches up to 6-7 meters and weighs up to 3 tons. The whales stranded on the beach are dying because of their huge bodies. It is difficult to breathe because heavy weight presses the respiratory system and organs, and it is difficult to control respiratory system and organs, and it is difficult to control body temperature outside the water, which eventually leads to death. Whales generate a lot of heat to withstand the cold sea, but they cannot cool off on the land. Now, I am going to talk about some opinions why whales run aground.
Damage to the Whales’ Sensory Organs
Whales and dolphins generally swim in the deep sea and feed on food, and usually come up to the surface only when breathing. However, if there is a problem with the organs that influence their sense of direction or an unexpected situation occurs, they swim in the wrong direction, and this behavior results in them becoming stranded or dying. When 30 sperm whales were found stranded on the North Sea coast in 2016, experts speculated at the time that the magnetic field generated by the powerful solar storm seemed to have disturbed the whale’s sense of direction. But researchers at Whale Deaths Investigation Program said the cause could be the use of military facilities to predict earthquakes or find buried oil resources. Past studies have shown that naval sonar can cause certain behavior in whales, leading to death. Certain frequencies can add fear and confusion to whales, causing them to speed up their heart rate and eventually lead to decompression sickness. A decompression disease is a disease caused by a pressure difference when it dives deep into the water and rises rapidly without a decompression phenomenon in which the surrounding pressure decreases. In addition, sonar can frighten whales and cause them to come up to the water too quickly, causing paralysis in the process.
The Sociality of Whales
Director James Cameron’s documentary “The Secret of Whales” introduces the story of whales with sociality like that of humans. Whales have different ways of survival depending on the region that they live because of herd tradition and education. Humpback whales communicate in groups, hunt, and even sing using ultrasound. Even if a whale loses its bearings, it may be questionable whether many whales can die at once. But what if one whale that lost its sense of direction was the head whale that led the group? Another important fact is that whales are strongly socially bound. They are so social that it is observed that when one individual is sick, the rest of the individuals do not leave the surroundings, and it is hypothesized that the rest of the whales may have been stranded as the sick individual ran aground. Did the social cohesion of whales with high intelligence lead to tragedy? What is the real cause?
The cause of the whales becoming stranded phenomenon is continuously being studied. Why do you think whales run aground? Is it because of damage to the whales’ sensory organs by humans? Or the sociality of whales? Or something else?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EB87tLXHVg
https://nownews.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20200825601014
https://www.coindeskkorea.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=75768
