Pod of 20 Whales Beached on Remote Australia Coast
Date: 29-Dec-04
Country: AUSTRALIA
The whales, each between seven and 10 metres (23-32 ft) long, were discovered dead late on Monday on a beach near Strahan, 180 km (110 miles) west of Hobart on the southern island state of Tasmania.
Scientists said it was impossible to tell if the mass beaching was linked to a huge earthquake recorded between Tasmania and Antarctica last week.
"It's very hard to pinpoint those sort of things because ... this year has been a year when we've had lots of strandings anyway and obviously they've all happened without an earthquake," zoologist Mark Hindell told Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) television.
The Australian government has said it would set up a national database on whale strandings. Last month, 115 long-finned pilot whales died in two separate strandings on Tasmanian beaches.
Bob Brown, leader of Australia's Greens party, expressed concern last month that those strandings might have been linked to "sound bombing" of the ocean floor used in seismic tests for oil and gas.
Wildlife officials said it was not unusual that all the dead whales in the latest stranding were females.
"The males travel in bachelor pods or big solitary breeding males and the females travel in either nursery pods or non-breeding pods, so it is quite a normal pattern for these animals," Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Serve ranger Chris Arthur told ABC radio.
