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THE NUMBER OF dead beaked whales that have washed ashore during the month of August has reached record levels.
Between 3 and 22 August, a minimum of 16 Cuvier’s beaked whales washed up dead on the Irish coast while during the same period at least 13 were found in Scotland and two in Iceland.
Strandings Officer for the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, Mick O’Connell has said that the numbers reported are the absolute minimum as previous studies have suggested that only a small number of dead animals actually get washed ashore.
In previous years, annual strandings for this species would typically have been between zero and three for an entire year.
No cause of death has been established for any of the mammals as they all washed ashore in very poor conditions.
The IWDG has said that causes such as diseases and plastic ingestion are all unlikely because the condition of all the carcasses implies that they all died around the same time.
“The behaviour and distribution of this species make large-scale fisheries interaction also seem unlikely,” the group said.
Source: IWDG
Cause of death
Cuvier's beaked whales are thought to be one of the deepest diving whales and typically live around deepwater canyons near the edge of the continental shelf.
O'Connell said that they are seldom seen alive, with the most information about them found by examining stranded animals.
Judging from events around the world, beaked whales are susceptible to death or injury due to extremely loud man-made oceanographic noise such as that produced by low and mid-frequency naval sonar and certain types of acoustic survey used to examine the sea floor and below according to the IWDG.
"Mass strandings of beaked whales coincidental with naval exercises have been recorded in Greece, the Canaries and the Bahamas," O'Connell said.
While no definite cause has been established for the whales that have washed up this month, O'Connell has said that the mass strandings need to be recognised as an unusual stranding event in an effort to identify and "perhaps prevent a future reoccurrence".
"If the strandings are recognised as an unusual stranding event in Scotland it would mean that the British government will investigate the deaths, possibly from the point of view of the British Navy," O'Connell said.
Britain’s Royal Navy regularly carry out training operations using sonar while the Irish Naval service does not use sonar on its vessels during any of its activities.
When previously asked about the whale strandings the Navy said in a statement that there is “no evidence that the deaths of these marine mammals have been attributed to any Royal Navy sonar operations, trials or exercises”.
“We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously and continue to work with the relevant UK authorities to reduce any environmental risk."
O'Connell said that he has emailed the Irish government regularly since the strandings started earlier this month to get it to investigate the causes of death, but he has yet to receive a reply.
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Glad I didn’t take that vaccine
@Ford McManus: Why?
@Me Me: injecting unknown substance isn’t wise
@Ford McManus: arent you a great little gemmaroid.
@Brieda Ní Cheese Easy Singles Drag Queen: pipe down, my little obedient sheep
@Ford McManus: murderer.
@Me Me: Cause it’s killing people.
@Ford McManus: you have the blood of older, immunocompromised, vulnerable people on your hands. Same gemmaroids puffing away on vapes.
@Brieda Ní Cheese Easy Singles Drag Queen: You still wearing your muzzle?
@Ford McManus: unknown substances? These days I reckon you can’t avoid them.
Eaten a sausage or taken a pill or walked on a street beside a car etc recently?
You seem to only have an objection to the ‘unknowns’ that might actually be good.
But I will pass your views on to my dead uncle.
@Ford McManus: They are not an ‘unknown substance’.
@Brieda Ní Cheese Easy Singles Drag Queen: Aren’t you a great little sheep.
@Ford McManus: Hahaha,unknown substance…awh bless your smooth brain.XD
@Ford McManus: But it wasn’t an unknown substance. Years later…..gosh no problems!
@Me Me: Because it didn’t prevent you from getting it or from passing it on.
Got the three shots and the Wuhan Flu twice.
Open the pubs.
@Setanta O’Toole: only if you spend 10 bob on grub. Don’t ever forget the science of it all my friend
@Mick O’K: you were being ripped off Mick, i was only paying 9.
@Mick O’K: You must be harking back to the good old days of ‘ten bob a day, dinner and tay’.
@Brendan O’Brien: No singing now cos that would spread the virus!
@Setanta O’Toole: must have been the Dublin prices I was paying
@Brendan O’Brien: no Brendan back only a few short years ago when our government said if you spent x on food you could go to the pub. Remember
@Mick O’K: I didn’t think ‘ten bob’ was a thing so recently, but I stand corrected.
@John Smith: Correct. Singing expels air from your lungs with greater force than normal conversation. So the viral particles would be spread further.
Biggest experiment in human history. The injection is killing people daily. Anyone who took it has a shortened lifespan.
@Kieran Conroy: utter bollocks.
@Kieran Conroy: Total cobblers.
@Alan OConnor: Intelligent reply but then the compliant sheep aren’t known for their intelligence…
@Me Me: Amazing how before an election people are promised so much yet when a government gets elected they deliver very little. These are the same liars silly people trusted during the scamdemic. Incredible.
We also know that lockdowns didn’t work and had very little effect on Covid case numbers and deaths. Sweden didn’t lock their country down at all and they had the lowest excess mortality in all of Europe. Plus they saw no reduction in the learning abilities of their schoolchildren. Florida was another place that didn’t mandate any lockdown rules on its residents and it had the exact same death toll as New York, which had the strictest lockdown policies in all of America. Considering that Florida has the largest proportion of elderly people out of any of the 50 States, they succeeded. When you crunch the data, countries like Ireland, Australia and Japan that had strict lockdown policies only increased their life expectancy by two weeks. Lockdowns failed, I wish politicians would apologise.
Covid .. the cure was worse than the disease.. excess mortality rate following lockdown..
So the common sense approach works. ‘don’t be a dí€khead, give people some space and don’t cough on them.’ It wasn’t a lot to ask really?
Bracing for the incoming ‘what about? What about? WHAT ABOUT????’s’
@Ronan Mc: article is 10 minutes old and you’re the only one banging on about the what abouts
@Ronan Mc: Your ma’s Your da
@Ronan Mc: To be fair they asked a lot more than ‘don’t cough on them’ especially after it became apparent that it was spread through breath. Well done to the Irish public for largely sticking to it.
@Ronan Mc: wish we still had social distancing in shops & public transport! It was so nice not having someone breathing down your neck
2025, and people are still banging on about the flu.
Misinformation is going to be such a problem to grasp for the next one. Too many fall down the rabbit holes of grifters looking to profit over diseased corpses. They don’t care if you’re dead if they have your money.
We need to treat misinformation the same way we would treat pro-anna and pro-suicide talk. With severe prejudice against it.
Karl Ronan of Erris Square, Waterville, Blancardstown. Another far right homophobe convicted. Tough guy apologised on his hands and knees.
@Brieda Ní Cheese Easy Singles Drag Queen: If only the courts and justice system were as swift for victims not connected to a political party.
@Seosamh Ohuaine: aaaahhh. Poor Karl. A victim. 10 bucks he was socially housed at our expense.
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