Wednesday, 32 whales were found stranded on the coast of east Java by local residents in Probolinggo; at least eight of them died. The mass stranding prompted hundreds of rescuers to join the efforts to return these giant mammals back to sea.
The whales, which were later identified as short-finned pilot landed at high tide and are optionally blocked due to changes in the temperature of the sea. most of them have tried to return to the deep sea, but ended up being back on the shore as one got stuck, leaving the rest trapped by low tide.
A man touches a dead whale | Photo: Reuters
In a statement to AFP Head of Maritime Bureau and the local fishing Dedy Isfandi revealed that whales swimming ashore if they get sick and they tend to stick together at all costs:
"But whales have such a high social interaction - when they fell ill, they approached the patient to swim to ... sea when the tide fell all of them were trapped. "
beaching motivated local fishermen, government officials and a team of environmental activists to bring back these whales the sea and prevent them from still being washed ashore.
The rescuers tried using tarps to wrap around the beached whales and dragged them out to sea, although most of them finally got their own.
Stunned by this mass strandings, a crowd of local residents came to witness the rare phenomenon and many turned to their phones to take pictures. Children have even been seen playing with the poor whales. The dead were taken for burial their grounding was considered the end of their journey:
A boy hangs on the fin of a whale dead | Photo AP
"What we do will you? If they are still alive, we will surely help them return to the deep sea. The dead, we must bury them, "said the village chief Sanemo as reported by the Jakarta Post .
While scientists are conducting autopsies on dead whales to discover the reason behind their grounding, fisheries officials suspect poisoning or turbulent waters of the Indian Ocean to be the main causes.