At the beginning of the week, a strong mobilization made it possible to save more than a hundred pilot dolphins stranded on the coast of Sri Lanka. According to local authorities, it would be the largest stranding ever known by the country.
A spectacular rescue
Thanks to the joint efforts of the Sri Lankan Navy and many locals, 120 pilot whales involved in a massive stranding that occurred overnight Monday to Tuesday were rescued. According to the national authority for the protection of the marine environment (Mepa), who indicated that the causes of the stranding were not yet known, it is highly unusual for so many pilot dolphins to reach shore.
” We used our little coastal patrol boats to push the cetaceans out to sea one by one “, has explained Indika by Silva, spokesperson for the Sri Lankan Navy. ” Sadly, two of them died from injuries sustained while stranded. ”
The school of shortfin pilot whales has started to wash up on the beaches of Panadura, about 25 kilometers south of Colombo, the capital of the country, shortly before dusk. In the space of a few hours, more than a hundred of these very social creatures, up to six meters in length and weighing a ton, would have found their way to Sri Lankan shores.
This impressive rescue came just weeks after the grounding of 470 pilot dolphins in Tasmania, where only a hundred cetaceans had been saved, despite significant resources deployed for nearly five days.
Different hypotheses to try to explain such phenomena
Although different theories have been formulated in an attempt to explain the recurrence of mass strandings involving pilot whales, the exact cause of this phenomenon remains a mystery for the time being.
Some experts say the animals could follow the fish they hunt to shore and become disoriented, while others believe that pilot whales evolve in large schools implies the possibility that a single individual could lead entire groups to run aground.
Finally, another hypothesis directly calls into question theecholocation pilot dolphins, which would be much less effective in shallow water, and therefore increase the risk of groups stranding over a large area, especially on gently sloping shores.