Whales’ ‘death wish’ stumps scientists

Wildlife scientists will examine samples from the remains of more than 90 pilot whales that died on WA’s south coast for clues about what prompted the animals to beach themselves.

Chelsea Nelson holds a pilot whale in a sling at Cheynes Beach on Wednesday.

Wildlife scientists will examine samples from the remains of more than 90 pilot whales that died on Western Australia’s south coast this week for clues about what prompted animals that live exclusively in waters more than a kilometre deep to enter a shallow bay that has never been home to their food sources.

In the hours before every long-finned pilot whale in the pod turned for shore and stranded itself on Tuesday, a drone sent up by the WA Parks and Wildlife Service captured the pod in a tight huddle that has been variously described as puzzling and unique.

Griffith University whale researcher Olaf Meynecke said the video record of the pre-stranding behaviour was unique but it was known that pilot whales did this when stressed. It is precisely the behaviour of long-finned pilot whales when hunted by humans in the Faroe Islands and Greenland, Dr Meynecke said.

“This is why the hunting is successful. It is possible to kill all of them,” he said. “There is panic, they are getting bounces back from their sonar from all directions because now they are in a bay and they are used to offshore environments. They get overwhelmed and are unable to make a logical decision.”

The whales stranded at Cheynes Beach, about 60km east of the port of Albany, late on Tuesday. Marine scientists believe the pod likely came from the Bremer Canyon, further east, where there is a plentiful supply of squid but also the constant danger of orcas.

The rescue operation began on Wednesday morning when the Parks and Wildlife Service had equipment and experts on site. By then, 51 whales were already dead. The department selected and registered 250 volunteers for a gruelling operation to save 45 surviving whales. As they were released into the Southern Ocean on Wednesday afternoon, they began turning back to shore one by one.

Soon after dark on Wednesday, incident controller Peter Hartley took the “really, really difficult” decision to euthanise all of them. This was on advice from veterinarians from Perth Zoo and private practices who had assessed each animal. “It wasn’t the outcome we were hoping for. But the one thing that I did observe … was the very best of humanity can offer … I just want to acknowledge that and thank everyone who responded,” he said.

Mr Hartley acknowledged there were questions about why his department did not start the rescue operation late on Tuesday. He said that would have been “just impossible” on a receding tide and with no heavy equipment.

“We used the night to get everything in place for the next day,” he said.

“I don’t think we could have done any more.”

Mr Hartley said scientists around the world wanted to study drone footage of the pre-stranding huddle. Samples from the whale carcasses would be used to understand more about the group, including whether they were related and if any were diseased.

“We’ve taken a number of different samples to try to learn from this really horrible incident,” he said.

Albany mother of five Chelsea Nelson registered as a volunteer on Tuesday after seeing the huddling footage on the news. The Parks and Wildlife Service phoned her at 9.30am on Wednesday. Ms Nelson then drove to Cheynes Beach and put on her wetsuit.

After being handed a safety brief, she waded into chest-deep water at 11am to hold one of the whales upright in a sling to prevent it rolling over. She said helping felt like a privilege and she ignored the cold and dodged flailing tales as she held the sling tight for 4½ hours. She said she could hear what she believed were distress calls from young whales in the pod and could see heavy machinery moving dead whales.

Ms Nelson and other volunteers left the water as the operation to gently herd them out of the bay began. There were high hopes but the whales re-stranded.

“The officials wouldn’t let me back in as I had been in (the water) too long and they were concerned about hypothermia. All I could do was watch helplessly from shore as the whales beached themselves once again,” she said.

“(So I) zipped my wetsuit back up resolutely and began … guiding, lifting the remaining whales into the provided slings with 10 to 20 of us on each whale, dragging them up on to the shore so they could be assessed and euthanised.

“(We were) pouring buckets of water over them to ease their distress, sitting with them at the end.

“An absolute heartbreaker of an end to the day.”