Ten Pilot Whales Dead on Everglades Beach, 41 Others Trapped EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Florida, December 4, 2013 (ENS) – Ten pilot whales are dead after 51 of the small whales became trapped and several beached themselves in a remote section of Florida’s Everglades National Park reachable only by boat. Fishermen noticed the beached whales around 2:30 pm Tuesday near Highland Beach in Monroe County on the park’s west coast, according to park spokesperson Linda Friar. Pilot whales stranded on Everglades beach, December 3, 2013 (Photo courtesy National Park Service) When a team of park rangers and workers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, arrive on the scene Wednesday morning, they found 10 beached whales and the others in nearby shallow waters. Because four of the whales were found in “poor condition,” they were euthanized by sedation as a humane option, said Blair Mase, a marine mammal stranding specialist with NOAA. Today rescuers used five boats to block the whales from the beach while encouraging them to swim back to the Gulf of Mexico. But Mase said she doubts that any of the 41 pilot whales still alive will survive the stranding incident. During high tide the whales could swim out to the deeper waters of the Gulf of Mexico where they normally live, but Mase told reporters, “I wouldn’t set out hope for that.” The west coast of the Everglades where the whales are trapped is full of sand flats and sandbars that remain above the water level even at high tide. The water is very shallow at low tide, making it difficult for the whales to swim away. A total of 25 people are involved in rescue efforts, including officials from NOAA, the Marine Mammal Conservatory and the Marine Animal Rescue Society, Mase said. At the end of the day, local time, several of the pilot whales had started to move away from the beach. Rescue efforts will resume on Thursday morning. Officials are performing necropsies on the dead animals in an attempt to find out why this pod of pilot whales stranded en masse so far from their deep water habitat. Mass strandings by pilot whales have occurred in Florida before. In 2012, nearly two dozen pilot whales stranded and beached themselves. In 2011, 23 pilot whales did the same. Short-finned pilot whales are found in warm temperate to tropical waters of the world, generally in deep offshore areas. They are not endangered, and research conducted in 2004 found at least 2,388 animals in the Gulf of Mexico. The IUCN Red List classifies the species as Data Deficient, population trend unknown. NOAA Fisheries is offering two new smartphone apps, Dolphin & Whale 911 and See & ID Dolphins & Whales, as a way to help people to report sick, injured or dead marine mammals and identify and view marine mammals responsibly in the wild. Dolphin & Whale 911 enables users to report stranded dolphins, whales, and seals in the southeastern United States: Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Reports of live or dead stranded, injured or entangled marine mammals will immediately go to trained and authorized emergency responders from the Southeast U.S. Marine Mammal Stranding Network. The public may also send GPS stamped photos of the animals to the stranding network in real time. “The Dolphin & Whale 911 app will revolutionize the way we find out about and respond to stranded marine mammals throughout the Southeast,” said Laura Engleby, Southeast Marine Mammal Branch Chief for NOAA Fisheries. “This technology will make it easier for people to know who to call and what to do if they find a stranded marine mammal. Marine mammal strandings in NOAA’s Southeast Region average about 730 animals each year. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2013. All rights reserved.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 05:38:31 +0000
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