WEBVTT - Why do whales beach themselves? 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.760 Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:16.360 works dot com. Hey, this is Alison modam like, the 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:18.840 science editor at how staff works dot com. And this 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.439 is Robert Lamb, science writer at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:25.360 Welcome to the podcast today. You were talking about relatively 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:30.320 sad question. Actually, um, why do Wales speach themselves? Yeah? 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.400 I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture recently at 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:38.760 the Georgia Aquarium here in Atlanta, hosted by Dr Gregory D. Bossart, 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.519 who is their chief Fetinary Officer senior vice president and 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.000 his special this is his specialty dealing with with the 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.280 question of why be Wales beach themselves? And uh, he's 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:53.320 involved in a number of rescue and rehabilitation UM programs 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.240 as well. And it's it's really, yeah, a much deeper 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.080 question than you might think. It's not like on par 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.960 with pointed boat it wash up on the shore. Yeah, 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.600 I mean we've all seen the news story. What were 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.160 you saying about. You know, if a news organization had 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.880 a choice between a beach whale or a car chase, 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:12.840 it would be tough to just which. I mean, like 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.160 if if you return on Fox News and they had 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.720 to choose between like a you know O. J. Simpson 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.160 style car chase and a beach whale. I mean in 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:24.000 terms of like sensational stories that you can cover by helicopter, 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:26.160 those are two of the big ones, you know, because 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.720 instantly you have this this poor you know, um aquatic 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.360 mammal that we can all sort of empathize with on 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.319 some level, you know, stranded, helpless, and then all these 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.120 these well meaning but ultimately kind of clueless people, um 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.560 in many cases except for the actual marine biologists you know, 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:45.520 on the scene, you know, trying to help the animal, 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:47.720 you know, push it back out the sea or or 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:50.160 or or you know, daused with water to keep it 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:54.560 from overheating. Um. You know, this massive effort to save it. Right. 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.400 It's a media circuits. But it's sad. It's sad. Although 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.200 I will add, as you mentioned that sometimes on thats 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.240 do succeed in saving some of the marine mammals that 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.040 are stranded you know by right. Yeah, sometimes it is 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.079 um a situation where they can just push the animal 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.760 right back out to sea and it's fine. Um. Other 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.840 times you push the animal out, get it back in 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:16.600 the water, and then it just ends up right back 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:18.320 on the beach, right but we'll talk about that in 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.560 the sec Yeah. So, but that's the thing. It's a 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:23.119 lot more complicated than just oh, it's back in the sea. 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:24.920 You know. Oh it's a heavy way. We can't push 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:29.079 it it. It's more involved. Okay, Sue, what is stranding beaching? 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.360 It's pretty simple. It's when you see an animal that 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.040 swimming or floating into shore and it gets stuck in 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.679 the shallow waters. And we tend to think of animals 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.800 like whales or dolphins running into this kind of problem, 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:44.000 but actually it does happen to sea turtles, to and seals, 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.119 and it's a big problem because you know, shallow water 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.760 isn't their natural environment, and uh, if they actually come 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.440 onto the beach, they're they're probably going to die without 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.120 some sort of rescue effort. And how do they die. 0:02:56.480 --> 0:03:00.120 They end up overheating for starters, they need water who 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:04.359 cool them? Right? And they're kind of prey for any predators. 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:07.760 You know, if you're a whale and you're washed up 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.880 on some Arctic shore and a poldar bearrar comes along, Um, 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.840 you know, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion what's going 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.080 to happen. Also, again, these animals are made to live 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.400 in an ocean environment, so like their their weight distribution 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:22.720 is all out of black if they're on the land. 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.320 There are some some types of of whales that when 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.400 they when they're washed ashore like that, their muscles end 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.600 up atrophying on one side of their body and it 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:36.400 actually causes the spine to to curve. So yeah, it's 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.440 just a bad situation all around. So, like I said, 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.600 it's mostly the cetaceans Um, the order that includes aquatic 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:48.320 mostly marine mammals like your whales, your dolphins or purposes um. 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:50.960 The bottle nose dolphin like flipper or whatever you think 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:52.480 of when you think of that kind of dolphin is 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.080 the most commonly streaded species. You look through the database 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.040 on some of the organizations that deal with this issue, 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.720 it's just bottlenose dolphins upon bottlenes dolphins, and part of 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:04.080 that say they tend to live closer into shore, but 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.080 that the number two species is actually the pygmy sperm 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:13.080 whale CONSTI live in deeper waters. So yeah, and that 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:15.640 actually leads me into the single stranding. So you have 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.120 to kind of strandings. You're you're gonna have a loan 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.200 individual or maybe an individual with offspring, or you're gonna 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.040 have these mass strandings kind of like the Jim Jones 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.760 cool a type of debacle. UM, But a single stranding 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:29.640 is pretty straightforward. And this is just going to be 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.200 when a sick animal beaches itself and the sickness could 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.599 be parasites, it could be disease, it could be um 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.520 ingestion of like a biotoxin, or it could be something 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.359 you know, like it ran into a ship or something 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:46.120 screwed up neurologically with the animal um and it can't 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:50.440 really navigate winds up on the shore. Yeah. And interestingly, 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:52.719 with the pitch me sperm whales that you were just 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:57.520 talking about, they're kind of this funky, mysterious species and um, 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:00.000 the deal with them is that they're actually suffering from 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.120 heart disease and so by the time they wash up 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.920 on shore, they're basically dying the slow death due to 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.000 heart failure, which is I'm sorry, it's kind of dismal. 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:10.839 I hope you guys otherwise have had a good day, 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.560 but this is a bit of a grim topic. So UM, 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:16.560 and then in the case of sick whales, you're also 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.400 going to have um caps who follow their their moms, 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.640 and they're hugely dependent on their moms for the first 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.880 two years of their life, especially with dolphins. So um, 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.680 if a mom has you know, some sort of sickness 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.400 or injury or neurological impairment, then they're both going to 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.560 strand themselves on shore. So that's kind of the single stranding, 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.200 that's the that's the you know, the solo instance. But 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.640 then you have these crazy mass strandings. Yeah, and some 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.440 of these range from you know, it could you could 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.600 be talking like a dozen whales that have washed up 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:50.360 on the shore or and this just blows my mind, 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:56.640 but New Zealand a thousand whales washed up on the shore. 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:01.000 A thousand you know, it's crazy just to pop elliptic sounding, 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.600 you know. And yes, so we're talking a lot of animals. 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.960 And the weird thing is that while single strandings tend 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.279 to involve animals that are sick or injured, animals that 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:13.960 are dying in the final stages of their life, mass 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.640 strandings will often include perfectly healthy animals that they're just 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:20.839 you know, washed up on the shore. Dr Bosser actually 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.560 told an interesting story about an incident he was present 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.680 for it in which sixty four dolphins washed upon the shore, 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.680 and um, some well meaning but otherwise, you know, untrained 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.080 individuals from the area were on the scene, and so 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.159 they did what might come seem natural to most of us. 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:42.760 They started pushing the animals back out to sea. Absolutely, 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:44.880 I would totally do that. So start pushing you know, 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.200 all sixty four, you know, right out back into the water. 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:48.880 And then what do they do? They wash up all 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.000 of them again, just a little waist down the beach. 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.799 This is there's a lot of mystery that still remains revolving, 0:06:55.520 --> 0:07:00.720 revolving around um these mass beachings. But the dominant theory 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:03.760 is that they believe that there will be a particular 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.839 leader dolphin, all right, and that leader something goes wrong, 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.720 either it's an illness or something neurological, and they end 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.400 up going going ashore and the others simply follow. So 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:17.800 if you push them all back out, you know, they're 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:19.560 just all going to follow the same leader back up 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.200 onto the beach. So like in this particular case, they 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.280 ended up having to euthanize most of the whales, you know, 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.320 all but just a few, right, because I suppose they 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.720 can't elect a leader on the spot or anything like 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:31.960 that right. Yeah, there's just and you're you're doing with 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.440 limited time, limited resources that they can't you know, stay 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:39.000 out of the water indefinitely. It's it's a really heartbreaking situation. 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.480 So let's talk about some of the other reasons beaching occurs, 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:44.840 mainly the ones that we have a hand in, um 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:49.200 like environmental climate change. Yeah, this is a big one, 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.840 um Like. An interesting example of this is when say, 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:57.360 a hooded seal washes up um in Florida. Hooded seal 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.920 is an Arctic animal. What does an Arctic seal to 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.640 going in Florida exactly? You know, and and they believe 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:05.440 it has to do with well, there were two seals 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.360 in this particular instance. Maybe it's a snowbird seal, you know, 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:12.560 like the snowbirds they call old elderly people who hang 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.480 out and you have cold spots during the summer and 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.760 they migrate to But no, it's not that, No, well, 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.280 I mean they did come to Florida to die, I guess, 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.120 oh gosh. It was also they had bellies full of 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:28.280 garbage because they had basically they were they were having 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.160 to go further south um to try and uh and 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.800 find food. Um. And and this all has to do 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:41.480 with with something called environmental distress syndrome. In a nutshell, 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.400 it comes down to this, if any kind of environmental 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.840 change going on, and and the belief is that that 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.680 humans have at least a hand in this, you know, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.440 and I'll leave everyone else to argue about that, but 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:58.680 but you're changing the recipe for life on Earth, and 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:00.080 it has at least a little bit and it can 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.600 have you know, medications for the animal's healthy Okay, yeah, 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.120 so yeah, so suddenly and animals having to go a 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:12.040 little further south or it's it's leading to you know, 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.960 it's leading to the emergence of new diseases, which is 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.880 which comes into play with for instance, the pygmy sperm whales. Um. 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.080 You know, they all have this heart disease. And there's 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.160 a theory that this may be linked to environmental distress syndrome. 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.760 The environment is changing, it's creating new diseases are emerging. 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:34.080 All diseases are re emerging. Um, everything's thrown into a 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.440 state of flux. You know, all the dice have been 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.880 rolled and they're they're coming around to a different arrangement. Yeah. 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.160 And on a related environmental note, I actually read this 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:45.520 study about chloride ion concentration in the water, and so 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.240 chloride ions um are handy for preventing barnacle growth on 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:51.760 your boat. But as it happens, they also affector into 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.720 your sense of hearing. And if you mess with a 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.080 number of chloride ions and you can mess with your hearing. 0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:59.800 So researchers have positive that this is one way that 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:06.040 we're messing with cetation hearing. Another interesting theory has to 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.680 do actually with sound. Obviously, the ocean is is filled 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.520 with various noises and a number of these uh I mean, 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.199 these these whales and dolphins use sound in something called 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:22.280 um echolocation. It's basically sonar, all right, So when you 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.959 start introducing new sounds, you know that that everything has 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.320 not evolved to deal with UM. Take for instance, noise 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.400 generated by oil rigs. UM. You can end up throwing 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:37.040 this sense of this, this this navigational sense off all right. Right. 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.319 You can even have noise from you know, giant ships 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.640 trawling disease. And of particular interest, the U. S. Navy 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.040 is currently funding research into this because they might be 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.319 the ones to blame UM. There's a belief that that 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:54.640 sonars sonar used in the submarine detection training exercises. Um, 0:10:54.679 --> 0:11:00.040 maybe aggravating gas bubbles in the whales livers, which it 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:04.959 is unpleasant, yeah, which can actually result in decompression sickness. Um. 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.480 So that's another sound related possibility that could be leading 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:12.080 to a number of these like mass strandings. So interviewers 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:16.400 basically with the animal's ability to communicate and thus right, yeah, 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:18.600 throws off their compass and then they wind up on 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:21.560 the shore and again you know, they go back out. 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.160 You know, it's not going to do any good. So 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.679 says someone notices a beach animal in the Sharan reports 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.080 and you the marine biologists or whoever response to it, like, 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:34.160 what are the options on the table? Well, um, sadly, 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:35.720 I mean in many of these cases it ends up 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:39.320 being used in Asia, you know, um, you know you 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.439 have you know, even just like a hundred, much less 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.240 say a thousand animals wash up on the beach. You know, 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.680 if everybody you know committed themselves to the cause of 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.280 saving these s wales, you wouldn't be able to do it. Um. 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:51.959 So you gotta you know, you gotta pick and choose, 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.000 and that means trying to determine which ones are the 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.080 healthiest specimens that can either you know, you can either 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:02.640 release or take back for rehabilitation. Impossible rerelease, and you 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:05.920 can do that with like performing tooth extractions. They'll perform 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.720 a tooth extraction on site to see you can instantly 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.000 tell how all the the animal in question is. Yeah, 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:16.439 and obvious signs of like you know, disease age, you know, 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.200 if they're covered with you know, scars from um, you know, 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.480 altercations with sharks, etcetera. I also read that they can 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:26.080 they're developing a device that can test the animals hearing 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.880 on site. So if they're hearing is messed up, it's 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.280 obviously such a key sense and that might be an 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.160 indicator of how the animal fair back in the wild 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:38.480 or in rehabilitation. And then you can also push them 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.439 out to see and on occasions it does work, more 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.040 often it doesn't. Yeah, I mean a big thing is 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:45.920 one of their beach they have to just keeping them 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.000 cool to you know, like keeping water on them, um 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.160 and you know, keeping them from eating up too much. Uh. 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.200 Interesting that when they die, it's not necessary. It's not 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:57.880 a lost cause because a lot of what we know 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:02.160 about what's wrong with these beached whales comes through performing 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:08.080 utopsies net weather with an animal. It's called a good point. 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.040 But but yeah, they'll the in fact, they have like 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:16.920 trailers like necropsy necropsy trailers that they can just perform 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.920 the autopsy on site. Sometimes they'll bring them in um 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.320 and have them you know, you know, and and take 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:24.960 care of them, you know, in a situation where they 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.800 have a little more time. Um. And then there's rehabilitation, 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:29.960 of course. Yeah. And this is a big one. This 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.720 is um. Yeah, and this is you know exactly what 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.440 it sounds like. You bring them in, uh, you work on, 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.840 you know, addressing whatever the physical ailment is, and then 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.120 try and get them back into shape to reintroduce them 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.080 in the wild. Um. And this it's trickier than it sounds. Yeah, 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:48.040 because you bring them in, you're then you're feeding them 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.120 dead fish. Yeah. And they need to, you have to, 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.600 they have to relearn how to eat live fish. Right. 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:56.840 So I think one of the most famous examples of 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.480 rehabilitation that perhaps didn't go so well was with Willie. 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:02.920 Oh yeah, yeah, I would say this one did not 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.440 go well at all. For those of you're not familiar, 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:07.120 I actually never saw the movie. I didn't see the 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:09.360 movie in there, I can't picture the whale. Yeah, it's 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:11.360 like jumping over some rocks and there's like a child 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.959 involved killer well right free daily as a killer roll. Yeah, 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:16.960 and so yeah, the whale in the movie like gets 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:18.680 to go free. And then people were like, hey, we 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:20.960 want the real whale to go free. That's not fair 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.040 that this whale played a free whale and it's a 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.560 captive whale or whatever, right right, right, So that makes 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:27.720 sense on a on a basic level. Yeah, but the 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.640 thing is that they can't They normally cannot release a 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:32.600 whale back into the wild unless it is physically and 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.360 mentally able um to survive in the wild. Remember, these 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.560 are very social animals, so it's not like it just 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.160 needs to it's it. It needs a it needs to 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.120 know how to find food. But it also needs to 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:45.760 be able to get along with other killer whales. It 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.280 needs to join a you know, a pot of killer 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.640 whales and thrive. So it needs to be accepted by 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.040 those whales. Um. So this was it has some stigma 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:58.600 attached shit. And so yeah, following all the public clamor 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:00.720 over this, uh, they ended up for leasing the whale, 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.840 whose name is Kiko. I believe it's k e I 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.680 k O pronounced it how you will. But yeah, so 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.040 people clamored. They ended up saying, all right, they released 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:15.400 the poor guy. And Bossert himself was a was a 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:20.320 critic of releasing this animal. And he described what because 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.640 it wasn't ready to be really, he was the animal 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.400 wasn't ready to be rereleased into the wild. And he 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.960 said it was like basically like a gold big golden retriever. 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:29.880 Like all this animal wanted to do was come up 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.240 to a human, open its mouth and have the human 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:36.080 scratch its tongue, which is no, that's what's what Apparently 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.160 they like to have their tongue scratch. But that's all 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.720 well and good in the confines of like a sea 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.840 world environment or something, you know, but out in the wild, 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.840 scratch it right. And and it's important to realize that 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:51.640 the ocean is a dangerous, dangerous, harsh place, you know. 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:53.480 I mean it's it's most of the earth, you know, 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.480 and uh and and it's it's deadly. So if you 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:58.680 if this whale is going out there, it's it's like 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.600 if you release somebody from uh um, you know, some 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.160 sort of I don't know, I'm a magic school house 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.280 and they went out thinking the world is all sunshines 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.720 and wallet inspectors, and you know, you know, the animals 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.280 just not prepared for the real world anymore. So this 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:15.880 animal ended up going back into the wild, wasn't accepted 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.200 by any any other killer whales, and end up dying 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:24.960 alone in Iceland. That's proper. That is really sad. Um. Well, 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.600 part of the other problem is is actually a little 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:29.760 bit more basic. It's it's a lack of funding. So 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.280 we have all these agencies right now that will respond 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.560 to UM a report of a marine mammal stranding, and 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.240 you can find them if you head on over to Noah, 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.080 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and they have a 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:45.040 division that deals with this exclusively. But anyway, UM, you 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.080 have all these agencies that are you know, prepared to respond, 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.520 but you don't have enough funding. So then it becomes 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:52.760 a question of how how is that money best spent, 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.520 Because if you're talking about a dolphin, it can cost 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:59.120 as much as a hundred seventy thousand dollars to rehab 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.960 a single dolphin. UM for something like a seal, a 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.600 sea lion, or a walrus, maybe it's a little cheaper, 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.480 maybe you get four dollars, maybe get fifty dollars. It's 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.600 a huge range, um, But this is the kind of 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.640 funding that they were talking about in uh the online 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.480 magazine for woods Hole they were they wrote an article 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.440 dealing with this. I mean, yeah, and it comes down 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:25.200 to is is it worth the money? Is it worth 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.520 the time? I mean, in many cases, you know, through 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.720 rehabilitation we learn more about the animals. There's and there's 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:33.760 a lot to be said for that. But take the 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.760 case of C six, which was a forty year old dolphin. 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:40.040 Forty years that's an old dolphin, all right, just covered 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.800 with scars from from altercations with with bull sharks. All right, 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.800 This is you know, a rug rugged, rough animal washes up, 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.680 all right, undergoes four months of rebuility, rehabilitation. Really they 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:53.800 finally released the animal back into the wild. Ninety three 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.160 days later, he chokes on a fish an invasive species 0:17:57.640 --> 0:17:59.679 um by the way, but but ends up choking on 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:03.679 a fish and dies. So I mean the big ethical 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:08.880 question is in what in which cases are we saving 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.920 the animal more for us than for the animal's own good, 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.959 you know, I mean absolutely selfishly, I can say if 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:17.920 I were in that situation of looking at a dying 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.720 animal on the beach, I would make every effort to 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.199 preserve the life if I could, you know, if it 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:28.240 involves like pushing some poor dolphin back into the ocean, 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.720 and then but is that the right response? Not necessarily 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.800 because I mean the free Willy example, there's an example 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:36.800 of them in the best of intentions there people just 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.320 wanted a whale to be free. But you know if 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:42.120 I think that was the case where it was ultimately 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.320 more about what we wanted than what was good for 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.359 the whale. And you know, in most of these an 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.680 a lot of these animals, especially in the single beachings, 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.080 I mean, they're dying. This is a dying animal. You know, 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.880 it's kind of you've got to close the book sometimes. 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:57.159 But there's not really no there's not really any right 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:58.959 or wrong answer here. It's just more of an ethical 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:02.640 quandram so on that uplifting note. If you have any 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.920 questions about marine mammal strandings, shoot us an email at 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.520 science Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or in 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:10.800 the meantime, you can check out some articles like what 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.600 Happens when a Whale Dies by Christine Conger and we 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.280 got blogs you wrote about this on the run. Yeah, 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.240 actually I covered this initially on the blogs a couple 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.479 of posts on whales, So yeah, I come check check 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.760 out the blogs and see what what kind of topics 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:34.600 are fresh in our minds. For more on this and 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:38.040 thousands of other topics, is a how stuff works dot Com. 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.040 Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:59.800 the house stuff works dot com home page.