# Beached Whales Get Beached Again? Should we interfere? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2002, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551 "2002-07-30T17:00:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/1 "2002-07-30T17:00:42Z")
Okay, I’m leaning towards this being a question that has a factual answer, rather than a GD or IMHO. People flock to the beaches to push whales back, and now a pod of whales has re-beached after one day. From an ecological standpoint, isn’t it best to let the beached whales be? Maybe we are removing a ecological component when we don’t give the whales a chance to die, be scavenged, etc. Somehow, something is probably benefitting from the beached whales…heck…maybe WHALES are benefitting. Maybe these whales carry diseases that other whales can catch and the whale population benefits from certain members committing suicide. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/2 "2002-07-30T17:54:45Z")
Well I don’t have a factual answer, but I think we should push em back in. I see giving them a chance to live outweighing any possible benfit of them dying. If after 3 beachings though, we should be allowed to smelt them down into blubber. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/3 "2002-07-30T17:55:28Z")
This isn’t exactly a factual reply but it does seem that letting them die would be the correct thing to do from a “natural” perspective. Kind of like letting forest fires burn. Whales are supposedly intelligent enough creatures that one would think they would understand the consequences of their actions. A fish out of water certainly seems to know that it needs to get back in the lake. ---
**Author:** ![red\_dragon60](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@red\_dragon60](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/red_dragon60)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/4 "2002-07-30T21:42:36Z")
I think part of the idea is that some beachings are man-made. Our sonar tricks the whales, and they go screaming into a beach. Seems natural to want to push them back in if we are the cause of the beaching. Sort of like correcting our mistakes. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/5 "2002-07-30T22:02:44Z")
> [@](#): > > I think part of the idea is that some beachings are man-made. Our sonar tricks the whales, and they go screaming into a beach. Does anyone know if there were reported beachings before the days of sonar? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/6 "2002-07-30T22:14:07Z")
I believe it depends-often whales will beach themselves when they are about to die-it’s a natural instinct. However, fifty beached whales doesn’t sound like a natural occurance. I don’t know…I suppose if the whale is going to die, pushing it back to sea isn’t going to make it live… ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/7 "2002-07-30T22:26:07Z")
The sonar argument is just a theory, and I would personally doubt that these whales beached themselves due to our actions. I was under the impression that most whales beached themselves following a (pack, school, squad, pod what do whales travel in?) leader, who is following their natural instinct to beach themselves before they die, as Guinistasia suggested, but don’t realize that it will lead to their own deaths. Since most of the whales returned to the original beach site, it doesn’t appear as though pushing them back into the water will do much good. If somebody else wants to spend their time stuffing whales back into the water, their welcome to, but I don’t see some huge moral impetus for me to book a flight to Cape Cod to wrestle with a two-ton pilot whale. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/8 "2002-07-30T22:35:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KRM \* > \*\*Does anyone know if there were reported beachings before the days of sonar? \*\* Yes, there have been. And the theories as to why it happens have been around just as long, too. [Here is a site](http://www.deafwhale.com/stranding/theories.html) which lists some observations regarding such strandings, as well as some theories as to why they occur. Note that a couple such theories have been aorund since the early 1930s. Also, the UK’s [Natural History Museum](http://www.nhm.ac.uk/zoology/stranding/) has been documenting such strandings since 1913, and laws regarding the use of stranded whales have been around as early as 1324. Hardly a new problem, this, and it is thus unlikely to be the result of sonar. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/9 "2002-07-31T02:50:13Z")
[July 30, 2002 About 28 pilot whales were being euthanized Tuesday evening after stranding themselves for the third time in two days…](http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/07/30/whales.beached.again/index.html) ☹ > [@](#): > > **Does anyone know if there were reported beachings before the days of sonar?** From the [cnn.com](http://cnn.com) story: > [@](#): > > In the end, the pilot whales – also called blackfish – came to rest at Blackfish Creek, named after some 1,500 pilot whales were stranded there in 1884. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/10 "2002-07-31T03:01:03Z")
I heard something on the news about the “experts” blaming an experiment the military is currently conducting with sonar for the beachings; they also connect it to a giant squid that washed up a few days ago(but wasn’t that in Austrailia?) Here’s a CNN story about the Navy studying the connection between whale beachings and Sonar: [http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/07/28/beached.whales/](http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/07/28/beached.whales/) I find it sort of odd that this CNN story came out the _day before_ these whales first beached themselves this week… ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/11 "2002-07-31T12:28:36Z")
I did catch blurbs about how beachings were always more prevalent in certain areas, like Cape Cod - an area that has marine biologists scratching their heads, because it has a long history of beachings…on a larger scale than now. My problem with the whole ‘save the beach whale’ campaign is this: Whales survived as a species with beachings by members of pods or whole pods. Whales follow leaders in an willl even return should they be freed. From a survival of the species standpoint, from an evolutionary perspective, there may very well be a benefit to the species, or to the ecosystem that the species is dependent on. We’ve hardly scratched the surface of understanding this phenomonon, so why not respect the fact that whales have evolved this trait to beach themselves. Again, just as an example, maybe these whales have poor sonar, poor sight, poor smell, poor judgement…whatever…but they might benefit the species by dying. Maybe they carry a disease, and by dying off, the disease is kept from spreading. Fact is, if I were to make logical assumptions, I would have to say that if we want to save the whales, we should leave them alone. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/12 "2002-07-31T16:47:09Z")
Have you ever smelled one that’s been on the beach for weeks? Yuck. I would just sell them to Japan for food if they keep beaching themselves. They would probably sell for more than $100,000 each, if edible. ---
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/13 "2002-07-31T17:53:22Z")
I remember hearing (this is annecedotal from some PBS special) that groundings had to do with migrant animals following the magnetic fields of the Earth, after they’d already lost their way, say by being caught in a storm. According to this theory, the animals can’t get back on track, because they think they’re going the right direction already. As for whether we should save them, that’s a whole different question, that of whether we should interfer with “natural” evolution. And that’s been addressed in the board before, I believe. (I side with “save 'em”.) ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beached-whales-get-beached-again-should-we-interfere/121551/14 "2002-07-31T18:27:44Z")
If we 'save ‘em’ and they go back and spread a rare whale disease and drive the species extinct, it’s still evolution. However, pushing them back to see is supposed to be an act of kindness … and it’s self motivation because we are trying to help the whales for our sake too…heck…we like 'em. What I am saying is this: You wanna help the whales? You might help a alot more whales if you left them alone.