(Photo : Elianne Dipp)
The orcas were biting the jaw of the blue whale, trying to get hold of its tongue. In a struggle for about an hour, as many as 70 killer whales tracked down and killed a blue whale off the southwestern coast of Australia, according to a marine biologist who witnessed the astonishing, a bit of disturbing and actually mind-blowing incident occur.
(Photo : Silvana Palacios)
Whale Watching
Initially, it appeared like a usual day of whale watching, Kristy Brown, a marine biologist with Naturaliste Charters, a company that owned whale-watching tours located in Western Australia revealed. Brown wrote in a blog post of March 16 that the vessel occurred upon two pods of orcas in Bremer Bay Canyon, around 45 kilometers (28 miles) away from the coast, that was playing and surfing the waves.
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A giant dead whale wasting away on an island Down Under is alluring locals and even bandits, but the rotten smell of its decaying body is keeping many of them off.
One man who went to take a look at the whale said its decomposing blubber spoilt his sneakers, and other locals have noted that they could perceive the smelly stench even at a distance of 5 kilometers (3miles) as disclosed by news sources.
Pathogens on the moldering body of the whale are another reason to stay away from the area, according to the Australian Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning (DELWP) in Gippsland. In a nutshell, people should stay clear of the beach, most especially because hungry sharks could be diving around, with the hope to take a bite of the 16 meters (52-foot-long) beached sperm whale, according to the department.
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Researchers have raised the alarm over the drastic drop in the population of gray whales off the West Coast of the United States. According to the researchers, the sudden drop in gray whales population by almost one-quarter since 2016 closely mimics similar die-offs close to 2 decades ago.
NOAA Fisheries reported in a paper released last Tuesday that surveys counted at least 6,000 fewer migrating gray whales last winter, i.e. 21,000 compared with up to 27,000 in 2016.
(Photo : Silvana Palacios)
Scientists Still in the Dark About Cause of Die-offs, Attribute Causes to the Environment
According to the agency, there is a strange mortality event which occurred in 2019. Dozens of gray whales were washed up on the beaches of the Pacific Ocean. Scientists have not been able to put the finger on what is causing this substantial die-off.