WEBVTT - Why Are Whale Strandings Still a Mystery? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:04.000 Hey, everybody. Uh. You know, we've been sheepish about tour 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:09.520 announcements lately, but we can finally announce our well, let's 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:15.560 just call it h our tour. Some cities we've been to, 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.320 some are new, someone's been a while. Yeah, we're coming 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.639 to cities all over the Conental Us and parts of Canada. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.040 If you live in either of those two places, there's 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.360 a really good chance we're gonna be somewhere near you 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:31.520 at some point this year. Chuck, I'm psyched. We're kicking 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.800 off in Toronto on August eight at the Dan fourth 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.080 Music Hall. It's going to be great. And then the 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.400 next day we're gonna be in beautiful Chicago on August 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.120 nine at the Harris Theater. Uh. And then the next day, 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:50.279 August nine at Dan fourth Music Hall in lovely Toronto, Canada, 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:54.240 North America, Planet Earth. And then we're too next so 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:58.319 I don't know, how about Vancouver on September and then 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.560 the next day we're gonna be a min Neapolis on September. 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.640 Those are gonna be awesome, that is correct. Then we 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.240 are going to take a nap, and then we're going 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.679 to wake up on October ten in Austin Texas, wonder 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.440 how the heck we got there, and remember that we 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.039 have to be at the Paramount Theater for our show. Yeah, 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.720 that's called the Austin Wake Up. And then Chuck, the 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.399 next day, we're going to be for the first time 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:26.720 ever in beautiful Lawrence, Kansas at the Liberty Hall on 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:31.240 October eleven. That's gonna be huge. And then equally huge 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:36.440 is what's next. We have a special three night second 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:39.480 home stand. We call it our second Home that's because 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:45.720 it's the Bellhouse in beautiful Brooklyn, New York. October. We're 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:48.920 gonna be there three nights in a row. And finally 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.440 we're gonna wrap it up in true stuff you should 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.320 know fashion here in Atlanta at the Bucket Theater on 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.360 November four, and there's gonna be a very special show. 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.800 Stay tuned for more details. But it is going to 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:03.360 be a charity benefit show. And not only are we 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:08.840 donating of our dough, uh, we got our booking agent, 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.800 in venues and promoters and everyone is chipping in to 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.359 donate large portions of their dough as well. So I'm 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:18.600 pretty excited about that. Yep. So it's gonna be a 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.560 great tour, Chuck, We need to go get our rest. Yes, 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:23.440 and you can go to s y s K live 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:26.679 dot com to get all your details because that is 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.280 our touring home on the web and tickets are going 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.080 on sale this Friday, June ninth, So visit s y 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.600 sk live dot com for ticket links. And if the 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.560 ticket link doesn't happen to be there, do not fret, 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.079 Just go to the theater home page and you can 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.720 find out all about it there. We'll see you on 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:49.919 the road. Welcome to Stuff you should know from house 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:58.799 Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:03.960 I'm Josh Clark with Mr Charles W. Chuck Bryant and 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:09.880 roundly liked fella and uh another roundly like person Jerry 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:15.880 Jerome rolling me. People can take a lad me. What 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.440 a weird start. Yeah, it's weird, but this is a 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:23.000 weird episode. Man, you think sure it's mysterious at least 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:27.320 that's mystery is weird? Uh, yeah, mystery is weird. There, 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.160 that's a T shirt. Prove my point, man, it's I've 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:31.880 been a long time since we came up with a 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.800 T shirt. Well, yes, since we pointed one out. Yeah 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:41.240 for sure. Yeah, mystery is weird. Josh Clark, that's y 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.680 sk s right, or some people say s U s K, 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:49.400 I've never gotten that. Well you knew the text version. 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:52.040 I don't know. I guess I think it's just a mistake. 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.760 I think so too. It looks weird. To each his own, 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.280 that's another good T shirt. Yeah, well that's our motto 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:02.000 here stuff you should know to each their own. That's right, 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:07.800 So chuck um. Back in February of this year, and 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.680 not too terribly long ago, down in New Zealand at 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:15.560 a beach called Farewell Spit in Golden Bay. It's on 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:20.640 the top of the South Island of New Zealand. Okay um, 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:25.760 they had a huge, huge mass stranding of whales, pilot 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:33.240 whales to be specific, about six hundred. Imagine that. It's 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.839 a satisfy thing. You can see. Well, yeah, there's one 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.320 of them. There's a I was reading an article I 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.840 think it was from The Guardian that it was basically 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.880 on location interviewing people down there. They were like, this 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.440 is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.159 It's alver experienced anything worse than this. Is dead pilot 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.520 whales everywhere, dying pilot whales everywhere, and apparently the local 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.560 authorities put out a call to people living in the 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.839 area saying like cancel school, calling sick to work, like 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:07.560 we need your help down here. And there's this group 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.920 called Project Jonah that's a New Zealand basically a whale 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.760 rescue group. And it's pretty appropriate that they're from New 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.880 Zealand because from what I understand, New Zealand has the 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:22.760 highest incidents of whale strandings or I think even cetacean strandings, 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.359 which you know is an ending up on a beach 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:31.839 um in the world. But the as an International Whaling 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:36.080 Commission puts it, any country with the coastline has is 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:38.880 going to have a problem with mass strandings of whales. 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.200 In Germany it did happen, which is not landlocked. It 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:47.600 turns out. Yeah, it's just heartbreaking to see these beautiful, 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:54.760 humongous creatures, uh, just laying there dying an awful, awful death. 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.279 And um, there's a a lot of, like I said, 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:03.000 mystery to the whole thing. We're not entirely certain why 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:07.560 whales end up stranded, especially on mass um. There's a 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:11.320 lot of pretty good hypotheses, some of which are probably true. 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:16.000 It's there's probably multiple explanations, but there is definitely some 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.880 some weirdness to it still. And then there's a lot 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:23.320 of debate about what exactly you should do during a 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:27.360 whale stranding. Should you help them, should you kill them? Um? 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.320 And then should you kill him? Yeah, exactly. And then 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.000 then there's a lot of debate also about what exactly 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.039 you should do with a dead whale stranded on the beach, 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.440 because those things, you don't just flush them down the toilet. 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.720 They're pretty big. Yeah, And when I said dying in 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:48.200 awful death, um, they well, there's a lot of things 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.719 that happen. Uh. Their skin burns, yeah, they have very 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.320 soft sensitive skin. Yes, So just to be out there 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.880 in the sun like that, they equated it to like 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.480 a third degree burn on a human just laying there 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.159 in the sun. Um. Seagulls come in and don't even 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:05.800 wait for them to die, and apparently have a thing 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:10.200 for going for the eyeballs. So a dying live whale 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.480 being having its skin burned and eyeballs picked out, Yep, 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.880 that's a big problem. And then you also, I didn't 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.680 think about this, but so a whale is a marine mammal, right, 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:25.240 they come up to breathe but they're there equipped to 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:29.400 be in the water where gravity is is less. Yeah, 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.720 they're they're huge, and so they need that water to 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.000 uh well, when they go and land, big problems happen. Yeah, 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:40.000 they encounter the pressure of gravity um pressing down and 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.840 then they actually start to to suffocate under their own weight. 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.000 The big problem is while they're laying there on the beach, 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.840 they it takes them a very long time to suffocate. 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.440 They have a tremendous obviously tremendous reserve of blubber, so 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.760 they don't starved to death first, and they very infrequently 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:01.400 do so. Over the course of days, possibly even weeks, 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:05.320 they're laying there suffocating under the weight of gravity, being 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.160 crushed by the their own blubber, yeah, and their their 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.880 own organs being crushed under their own weight. So it's 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.000 a bad jam. It's a pretty bad scene. Yeah, it's 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.840 just really really sad. And to fully understand how to 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.680 help whales and other cetaceans from becoming stranded in the 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:25.040 first place, we have to understand why they become stranded. 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:30.400 And there's a a lot of investigation into this, but 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.959 apparently it's nothing new from from what I've seen as 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.400 far as long as humans have been keeping records, there 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:42.160 have been reports of mass whale strandings all over the world. Yeah, 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.920 and you cobble together quite a few articles for this. Um. 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.240 One of the really good ones was what causes mass? Uh? 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:53.319 What causes whale mass strandings? From the conversation by Robin 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:57.560 Grace and um she points out that you know, like 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.240 you said, this has been going on forever since people 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.920 have been writing it writing it down. And um, lots 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:06.560 all different kind of species of whales this can happen to, 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:11.480 and dolphins and other cetaceans. But um, it says she said, 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.199 short finn pilot whales are the most frequent or he. 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:16.439 I guess it could be like that guy from Cheers. 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.760 It is r O B y N. That's that's always 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.200 a she? Right, No, Robin Hitchcock spells his name with 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:27.679 a Why doesn't he? Oh? What a confusing world. I 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:32.120 talked to him in an elevator. Uh, the sketch best 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:37.280 that last year? Really? Yeah? What are the Egyptians with him? No? Wait, 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:42.160 wasn't he in the band? What band? The band? Oh? 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.400 What was the in? Originally? I don't know he was 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:49.280 in like a what major band like that first, I 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:55.080 wonder he's definitely not the band. He's English. Um, sorry, 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.679 where were we? Oh? Yeah, yeah, So pilot whales short 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.560 finn pilot whales are the most frequent U strand strand 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:06.480 ease I guess um false killer whales, melon headed whales, uh, 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.440 melon headed whale and that name uh, the Cuvier beaked 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.559 whale and sperm whales. Um. These these are all very 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:18.600 much deep sea dwellers, very social fish. And this is 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.440 one of the problems as they hang out together in 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:26.280 the hundreds and so um, one of the thoughts, uh, 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:28.760 Like you said, there are a lot of different hypotheses, 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.040 but one of the thoughts when they see these mass 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.160 strandings is whatever. And we'll talk about what might get 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:37.760 that first whale there, whether it was just sick or 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.840 confused or out of its depth trying to go for 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:48.520 some prey, uh like, out of its comfort zone its deep. Yeah, 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:53.160 but maybe the other hundreds are just tagging along. Right. 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:57.239 So there's this there's this big drive, especially among environmental 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.600 protection groups, to say this is human caused in large part, 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.840 and there is a whole branch of strandings that probably 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:09.160 are that actually almost certainly can be accounted or chalked 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:13.160 up to human activity. But there's also a big wide 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:18.240 portion of animal strandings, cetacean strandings that appear to be 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:22.160 natural in nature. Right. And so some of those hypotheses 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:27.000 are that initially, like one whale or something was sick 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:33.760 or maybe injured, um, and came in toward shallower water 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.439 so it could come up to surface for air more easily, 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:44.520 and when in a little too shallow and got trapped there. Um. 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:49.360 It's possible that a pod of whales were chasing some 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:54.000 very valuable prey into areas that they weren't familiar with 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.400 that were too shallow, um, and they got stranded there 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.560 as well. And there's there's a couple of uh parts 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.160 to this that that makes the whole thing makes sense 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:08.200 a little more. One is that echolocation that is part 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:13.920 of it's basically the number one sense that um marine 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.600 mammals use. Uh. It's it doesn't work very well in 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.640 shallow waters, right. Yeah, So they do their navigational aid, 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:23.800 they get into these shallower waters, like you said, maybe 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:25.920 they were chasing something to eat. All of a sudden 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.880 they find themselves out of place. They don't know which 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.400 way to go, So they inadvertently swim towards the shore 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.200 and accidentally beach and maybe they've got hanging out with 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.640 twenty or thirty pals because their social because which makes 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:42.959 it all so sad. That's a big cue though, or 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.880 a big clue that, UM, these are deep sea marine 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:54.120 mammals that strand on gently sloping sandy areas. Yeah, and 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.520 they found some uh, I guess anecdotal evidence. UM, some 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.680 whales in the North Sea that were beached or stranded 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:05.080 had recently digested oceanic squid. So they thought, well, you know, 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.200 maybe they had gone in chasing the squid, had just 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.400 eaten it and didn't know which way to go to 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.800 get out of there. Yeah, they got confused. And that's 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.920 another thing that UM, people who have been on the 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:21.160 scene of mass whales strandings report is that the whales 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:25.480 often seemed to be disoriented or disorientated, depending on where 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.280 you're from. Oh, that's right, wasn't that a thing on 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:34.400 the show? I think it's u kaish is disorientated. Uh 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.439 should we take a break now? All right, we'll take 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.120 a break, and UM talk a little bit more about 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.840 the natural causes and also about potential man made causes, 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:08.960 So Chuck. One thing that you you hit upon, um, 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.960 is that the whales are very, very social. Yeah, and 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.520 so there's this idea that if one becomes stranded, especially 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.520 if this is a leader that's leading a pod, if 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.359 they become lost or disoriented, as long as they're stranded, 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:26.440 the other members of the pod, of this extremely social, 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.800 tight knit group are going to hang around and stick 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.360 with that one. There's also an idea that ones that 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.640 they are sick are injured if they go off and 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:41.640 become stranded. That even if the ones that follow them 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.840 aren't lost, they're there because of the social bonds, like 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:49.320 they're there to provide support or because they care. It's 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.160 called the social caring hypothesis. This idea that whales allow 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:59.440 themselves to become stranded because a member of their pod 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.720 has been come stranded and they're worried about them. Basically Yeah. 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.720 Uh So obviously there are a lot of people around 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:08.760 the world that care a lot about this and are 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.720 trying to work to just learn more about how to 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.400 handle this and uh and last year there was a 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:19.600 workshop held to discuss, you know, how to practically handle 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.920 these strandings. Uh and so it concluded UM that they 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.680 had a uh an International Strandings Network they were going 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.520 to establish this, and I guess they're in the process 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.120 of doing that now, basically stranding experts from all all 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.480 these different countries where it happens. Partnering up was something 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:42.480 called the Entanglement Network UM to basically share information on 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.360 best practices and just get a little more organized with 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.160 how they can best help this situation. So you know, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.480 it's good that they're doing something about it. One of 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:55.040 the other things that UM very recently, I think within 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:59.720 the last year two has been finally handled was this 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:04.880 longstanding issue of whether or not sonar that's used by 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:10.680 like navies around the world UM it leads to strandings 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.880 of whales. Yeah, this was the first time this connection 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.440 was made. There was a NATO military exercise off the 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.480 coast of Greece which coincided with the stranding of twelve 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.920 UH Cuvier's beaked whales. UM. Another one in May two 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:32.160 thousand in the Bahamas UM loud loud mid frequency sonar 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:36.160 stranded a number of whales and for those they did 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:40.680 some UH examinations and found hemorrhaging in them in the 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:46.400 inner ear that indicated acoustic trauma, which is just devastating, right, 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:50.040 And there were NATO or either NATO or U S 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:54.760 Navy sonar exercises that had been conducted right there, right, Yeah. 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.040 And then in two thousand two, a group of beaked 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:02.440 whales landed in the Canary Islands and UM, they were 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.760 examined and this has raised a really big mystery as well. 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.320 Some of them showed signs of what we would call 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:12.040 the bends submersion sickness, which you would not think that 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.960 marine mammal would ever have a problem with. No, because 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:19.199 they've developed UM, well they've adapted to be able to 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:23.399 die very quickly and rise very quickly. But they think 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:28.560 that probably something about acute sonar, which is basically just 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:32.440 getting hit by a blast of high frequency, short duration 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:38.840 sound waves UM causes them to either swim away. This 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.160 is the current hypothesis. There was a New York Times 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.159 article called the Search for Clues to What causes Whale 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:47.760 strandings and UM. It talks about this study that was 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.400 published in the Journal of Experimental Biology in two thousand seventeen, 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.880 and the study UM, who's carried out by Terry Terry 0:17:55.920 --> 0:18:01.000 Williams basically says that sonar goes off nearby some whales 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:05.159 or cetaceans, they try to get away as fast as 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.280 they can. As they do, they expand about double the 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:13.000 amount of energy they normally would swimming, and they they 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:17.040 lose oxygen to their brain. In the meantime, carbon dioxide 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:21.080 starts to build, which allows bubbles to form in their tissues, 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:26.600 including their brain, which is bends decompression sickness, which so 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:32.040 it's not like sonar causes the bends, but indirectly, they 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:38.119 think leads to the bends by disrupting that the whale 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:42.439 or cetaceans ability to dive or rise very quickly without 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.880 decompression sickness. Yeah, and this um, that study was pretty 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.560 important because they I think for for a long time 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.560 people just thought, well, they're fish. They can swim endlessly 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.359 and it's not a problem because their marine mammals or 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:00.200 fish and they just that's what they do. But it's 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.119 sort of a no brainer that they can get tired 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.440 just like anything else, and they confirmed that in studies. 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.840 You know, if they if they sprint, basically, um, they 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:14.199 are essentially getting tired. And if they're sprinting to avoid sonar, 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.720 then that's a problem, and so as a result, the 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:22.320 Navy entered into an agreement to not conduct these trials 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:29.399 or sonar exercises or underwater explosions UM between around Hawaii 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:34.639 or southern California, which are extremely important UM reproducing and 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.960 feeding grounds for whales of all types, and there's some 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:41.359 resident populations there. But they finally said, okay, alright, fine, 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.840 we're not going to do that anymore around there, which 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:49.800 was a big deal. Yeah, seaquakes or another uh UM 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:55.080 underwater sound UM like really intense thing that can can 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.360 affect them beyond sonar. So it's not always just man 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.200 made sounds, no, but there another type of man made 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.119 sound that's a big problem called chronic underwater noise. That 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:09.600 UM is created by things like UM shipping or industry, 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:14.440 that kind of thing where it's not necessarily this high intensity, 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.680 but it's it's pretty much constant, and it can drive 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:22.200 cetaceans nuts because again, like we use our eyes, they 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.160 use their ears, and if you have a huge loud 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.920 sound or a constant loud sound, it makes it difficult 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:30.919 for you to do things like you know, hit on 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:35.160 a lady whale when you're when it's time to reproduce. Well, yeah, 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:37.160 and we've we've mostly been talking about whales, but there 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:41.840 was this one um anecdotal story of these dolphins short 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.639 beaked common dolphin that this one researcher found and this 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:47.760 kind of lends itself to the to the fact that 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.560 they will travel together if one of them is hurt. 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:57.359 And this is at the Tife Estuary, West Wales, and 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:00.680 he found these two dolphins on the beach and one 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.560 of them was sick. Uh postmortermobile had a heavy long 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:07.680 parasite infection that affected its breathing. But the other one 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.479 apparently was not sick but remained close to uh it's 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:17.080 little buddy in distress, like whistling frequently. So um man, 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:21.480 that's just like heartbreaking. It was like ted Ted, stay 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:25.720 with me, his ted Ted's the dying dolphins. Okay, I 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.800 thought that was a references something just Ted the dolphin. Yeah, gotcha. 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.680 Did you ever hear about the researchers. Surely we've talked 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:38.440 about that, the dolphin researcher who like took acid with dolphins, 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.679 like gave acid to dolphins and dropped it himself. I 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:43.600 don't think so build a house, and I think the 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.480 Bahamas that could be flooded to the dolphins could come 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:51.439 live in the house with them. M I believe tried 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:58.600 to or successfully. His research assistant did it with the dolphin, 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:01.919 had sex with a dolphins. That's another way to put it. 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:06.680 This is real. I've definitely never heard this story. Yeah, 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:09.760 we I think that one might deserve its own episode. 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:15.520 It's it happened the man who did acid and did 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:20.439 sex with dolphins. I think his research assistant, a female, uh, 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.800 did it with dolphins, or at least came close. There 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:28.919 was like a this wasn't a fever dream. It sounds 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:30.639 like it must have seemed like it down in the 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:33.840 Bahamas at the time. Yeah, well, we'll do an episode 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:39.880 on it. Okay, so we It feels like a science 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:43.399 is hot on the trail of cetacean stranding, so figuring 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:46.720 out what causes it. There's a lot of different causes. Yeah, 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:51.639 it's probably all that stuff. I think, probably, um, but 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:55.560 there's a big issue still to be discussed, and that 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:59.320 is that if you have a dolphin stranding or a 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:03.320 whale strain ending, and you've got some that have died naturally, 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:06.720 but you still have some that are alive, what do 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:09.879 you do well. There's this that group in New Zealand 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:13.520 called Project Jonah. They have guidelines for like the average 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:16.800 person of how to how to keep a citation that's 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:20.239 been stranded or beached, how to keep it comfortable, how 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:25.080 to keep it alive. Ye, a dolphin obviously is more savable, 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:29.960 uh and um, more savable, not only because they're smaller, 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:35.280 but there it's frankly, it's an unsafe to go too 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:37.800 close to a beached whale, right. That's why I was 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:41.320 really surprised that this group was putting out guidelines telling 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:44.480 you how to care for a beach to whale. It's 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:47.560 an extremely dangerous thing to get near a beached whale, 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:51.000 especially by the tail. Yeah, I mean an accident can 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:54.360 easily happen. And they're so strong, sure, and they're agitated, 0:23:54.400 --> 0:23:57.520 they're scared out of their minds. It's a it's a 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:00.119 dangerous thing. So there's a lot of a lot of 0:24:00.320 --> 0:24:03.480 discussion about you know, what do you do well? Some 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:05.520 people say, well, you refloat them, you get them out 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:10.480 there as fast as possible, but it is hard to 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:15.119 do and also to an untrained person, you can't really 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:22.000 spot a gravely injured internally injured citacean just by looking 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:24.600 at it. So you may be pushing it back out 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:27.760 to sea and being like, go go live, when really 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:31.159 they're going going to have a long, prolonged death at 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:36.560 sea because they're dying of internal injuries. The The prevailing idea, 0:24:36.640 --> 0:24:40.639 it seems like, at least among scientists, is that you 0:24:40.680 --> 0:24:45.120 should probably euthanize, especially a whale. Dolphins, Yeah, you can 0:24:45.160 --> 0:24:48.680 probably refloat them. A whale once it becomes beached, it's 0:24:48.840 --> 0:24:52.760 probably a goner, so say most scientists that I've come across, 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:56.359 And so you you would euthanize them. But then this 0:24:56.480 --> 0:24:59.720 raises the whole issue how do you humanely kill a whale? 0:25:00.440 --> 0:25:04.040 Where do you get a guillotine that big? Uh? Yeah, 0:25:04.080 --> 0:25:06.359 and you know what, we'll talk about what they've come 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:30.760 up with right after this. All right, So where we 0:25:30.880 --> 0:25:35.879 left off was the um Sadly, oftentimes the most humane 0:25:35.920 --> 0:25:37.119 thing to do would be to put one of these 0:25:37.160 --> 0:25:40.720 whales out of their misery, uh immediately or you know, 0:25:40.760 --> 0:25:43.760 as quickly as possible. Uh. And so how do you 0:25:43.800 --> 0:25:47.440 do this safely? Um? They've tried a variety of drugs 0:25:47.440 --> 0:25:52.199 over the years, UM, some degreater success than others. UM. 0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:56.919 One drug they tried was good old phena barbital um. 0:25:56.960 --> 0:26:00.800 The problem with feena barbital is that it's uh, it 0:26:00.840 --> 0:26:05.840 doesn't just leave the whale immediately. It can It can 0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:08.880 stay in the whale system and then go into other 0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:11.679 places like a dog. Yeah, it doesn't break down in 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:14.160 the environment. And there was a case of a dog 0:26:14.480 --> 0:26:18.520 being fed whale meat and falling into a coma because 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:22.360 of the bar the barbituous that had. I mean, like, 0:26:22.480 --> 0:26:25.920 it takes a truckload of barbituous to euthanize a whale, right, 0:26:26.520 --> 0:26:29.280 so this dog eating this meat and falling into a coma, 0:26:29.440 --> 0:26:32.440