Monster from the deep... on the Norfolk coast: 40ft sperm whale washes up on Christmas Eve

It is believed the mammal was dead before it was washed up on the beach


The sand around its tail did not appear disturbed, suggesting the creature was dead before the tide carried it onto the sands at Old Hunstanton, Norfolk.

Large crowds gathered to see the whale, which is near the high tide mark.

A spokesman for the British Divers Marine Life Rescue said it may have been the same whale which had been seen dead on the RAF’s bombing range on the other side of the estuary, at Holbeach, some weeks ago.

Scientists from the Zooological Society have already taken samples from the animal, which will be left to be carried away by the tide to decompose naturally.

A number of whales have been washed up on the North Sea coast in the past year.


They have been especially prevalent around the Humber Estuary.

Conservationists believe the increase in the number of strandings could be explained by a change in sea currents bringing colder streams of Arctic water into the North Sea and with them whales that would not normally pass so close to the UK shoreline.

At the end of September a 33ft mammal, thought to be a Sei whale, was discovered in marshes on the north bank of the River Humber near the village of Skeffling.

Earlier the same month, a young Fin whale - a relative of the Sei - was stranded at Immingham, North East Lincolnshire, and subsequently washed up dead near Spurn Point.

The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust has noted a rise in whale sightings generally in 2011 but no-one is sure why there may be an increase in the mammals in the North Sea.

Over the summer, a pod of up to 10 Minke whales were spotted regularly off the North Yorkshire coast between Whitby and Scarborough.

Whale experts admit they do not know why there has been an upsurge in sightings and strandings.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2079389/Monster-deep--Norfolk-coast-40ft-sperm-whale-washes-East-Anglian-beach-Christmas-Eve.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Hopes growing for Orkney whale

A SPERM whale that was thought to be in a poor condition has moved away from a harbour and back into deeper water.

The whale, a male measuring 40-50ft long, was first sighted in Kirkwall Bay, Orkney, at around 7am yesterday by the crew of a passing vessel.

There were growing concerns that the whale had come into Kirkwall harbour because it was ill or injured.

Shipping had been warned to stay clear of the animal.

The whale was around 30ft from the harbour pier and was barely moving in shallow water.

However, just after 1pm, the whale moved away from the harbour, travelling north into deeper water.
Mike Lynch, local inspector for the Scottish SPCA, was at the scene all morning and said it was unusual that the animal came so close to shore.

He said: “The whale has disappeared. It moved off pretty quickly after managing to get into deeper water. It’s heading north and hopefully will be OK.”

However, he said the young adult male whale was clearly ill or injured.

“It’s got scars on its nose and its body condition is poor,” he said. “It’s very thin and immobile and has never really submerged fully.

“Normally they’ll go underwater for 20 minutes and can pop up a mile away.”

At one point the whale came within a few metres of the busy pier. Its plight attracted crowds of onlookers.

The whale was closely monitored while it was in the harbour, with contingency plans drawn up to deal with the animal’s carcass, had it died in the bay. But it swam back into deeper water north of the harbour and vanished.

“It’s a happy ending, for now,” said Mr Lynch. “It’s the first time I’ve seen a sperm whale here that wasn’t stranded.”

http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/hopes_growing_for_orkney_whale_1_1905895

Sperm whales: the 12-metre-long babysitters

Underwater mammals in the waters of Azores solve their childcare issues in a spirit of mutual cooperation

Sperm whales may be the biggest predators that ever lived, but they have childcare issues too. The solution? A very big babysitter.


Here in the Azores, where I've spent the past two weeks diving with sperm whales off the island of Pico, a resident population of these remarkable mammals search for their main source of food: squid.

While the sperm whale is a natural submarine, able to dive a mile in depth for up to two hours, young calves still suckling their mother's milk (which is 60% fat, with the consistency of cottage cheese) cannot undertake such deep plunges. So while their mothers hunt for food, calves are cared for communally in what amounts to a cetacean creche. This accompanying image, taken by the accomplished underwater photographer Andrew Sutton, shows whale altruism in action. Only one of the four juveniles with this large female is hers; she may not even be genetically connected to the others.

João Quaresma of Espaco Talassa, our Azorean skipper, told me that to see four young with one female is unusual. "Calves start to feed themselves at around three or four years," he says, "but they've found whales up to the age of nine still suckling." Studies by scientists such as Dr Hal Whitehead of Nova Scotia University have shown that sperm whales organise themselves in highly complex societies, communicating in discrete dialects of sonar clicks, passing on culture learned matrilineally. Such behaviour reinforces what we are beginning to discover about the intelligence of these whales, which possess the largest brain of any animal.

Operating under special licence from the Azorean government which determines strict care for the whales' welfare, Andrew and I snorkelled with this group, watching them silently twisting and turning around one another in a physical expression of social solidarity. It was a salutary moment. In the 20th century, our species came close to driving the great whales to extinction. This week, the International Whaling Commission meets in Jersey to decide the fate of cetaceans around the world. Conservationists hope that they'll make the right decisions. Sometimes whales need more than a babysitter to help them – even when she's 12 metres long.

Philip Hoare

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 10 July 2011 19.59 BST

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/jul/10/azores-whales-cooperative-childcare

Beached 44ft whale dies on Redcar beach

The mammal died despite hopes it would survive until the tide went out

31 May 2011

A 44ft (13m) long whale has died three hours after becoming stranded on a beach on Teesside.

Police alerted the RNLI after spotting the 20 tonne stricken mammal on Redcar Beach, just after 0620 BST.

A rescue bid started which involved trying to keep the adult sperm whale wet until high tide but it died.

Richard Ilderton, of British Divers Marine Life Rescue, said the North Sea was not a suitable environment for such a large creature.

RSPCA officers were involved in the rescue attempt, along with those from the Coastguard and Cleveland Fire Brigade, while RSPCA vets assessed the mammal's condition.

An RNLI spokesman said: "We don't know the reasons but usually when they get to this situation the conclusion is that they don't survive.

"A post mortem will be carried out on the whale and then it will be up to the local council to dispose of it."

'Becomes malnourished'

Crowds went to the beach to see the whale.

Redcar and Cleveland Council said cordons had been put up around the whale, which is due to remain on the beach overnight, watched by security guards.

Mr Ilderton said: "While we have whales in the North Sea, it is not a suitable environment for a sperm whale because the food supply is not there.

"It doesn't eat, it becomes malnourished, it becomes dehydrated because whales do not drink - they get their liquid from their food.

"It can cause all sorts of health problems and ultimately results in something like this happening."

He said the whale's death might actually have been the best outcome.

"If we were able to put the animal back out to sea, all we would be doing is putting it back out to starve, which is massively cruel and against what we want to do," he said.

Robbie Marsland, UK Director of International Fund for Animal Welfare, said whales stranded for a variety of reasons.

He said: "While it is not possible to pinpoint the cause in every case, we do know that human activity in the seas is increasing the threats to these highly intelligent and complex marine mammals.

"Manmade ocean noise, from shipping, oil and gas excavation and naval sonar, makes it ever harder for whales to navigate, communicate, find food or mates and avoid prey."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-13601654
(Submitted by Liz R)

Huge sperm whale washes up on Kent beach

3 March 2011 Last updated at 21:48

A 45ft (13.7m) sperm whale has died after becoming stranded on a beach in Kent.

Coastguards were alerted to the beached whale at Pegwell Bay, between Ramsgate and Sandwich, at about 0730 GMT.

Claudia Sermbezis reports.

Read More

Whale dies stranded on Kent beach

See video at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12642695
(Submitted by Dawn Holloway)

Whale Poop Cleans the Environment

Whale waste is rich in iron so it stimulates the growth of phytoplankton, which then serve as carbon traps that remove some 400,000 estimated tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year.

Sperm whale waste isn't much to look at -- a diarrhea-like substance with a few squid beaks floating around -- but new research has found it removes carbon from the atmosphere, helping to offset greenhouse gases that have been tied to global warming.

Sperm whales in the Southern Ocean release 220,462 tons of carbon when they exhale carbon dioxide at the water's surface, but their poo stimulates the drawdown of 440,925 tons of carbon, according to the research, published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

These ocean giants and certain other marine mammals may therefore be among the most environmentally beneficial animals on the planet.

"If Southern Ocean sperm whales were at their historic levels, meaning their population size before whaling, we would have an extra 2 million tonnes (2,204,623 tons) of carbon being removed from our atmosphere each and every year," lead author Trisha Lavery Told Discovery News.

Lavery, a marine biologist at Flinders University of South Australia, and her colleagues explained how the cleaning process works.

It begins with sperm whales feeding on squid and fish, their favorite prey, deep in the ocean. The whales then return to the water's surface to relieve themselves.

"They do this because they shut down their non-crucial biological functions when they dive," Lavery said. "So it's only when they come to the surface to rest that they defecate."

Their waste comes out as a giant liquid plume (save for the undigested squid beaks) that showers over minute aquatic plant "seed stocks," which she said are "just floating around waiting for nutrients so they can use them to grow and reproduce." The whale poo provides these nutrients, functioning as a natural fertilizer.

The plants -- phytoplankton -- take up carbon from the ocean as they grow. Through the entire life and death cycle of these plants, the carbon then stays "trapped" for centuries to millennium.

http://news.discovery.com/animals/whale-waste-greenhouse-gases.html