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Sixteen pilot whales are dead following a mass stranding on the north shore of Sable Island on June 10.<\/p>\n
Zoe Lucas with the Sable Island Institute alerted Parks Canada, which went to the location and found some of the whales already dead.<\/p>\n
Parks Canada alerted the Marine Animal Response Society around mid-morning that day, said Tonya Wimmer, founder and co-executive director of the society. <\/p>\n
“Any time we get a call and it involves live animals, but especially mass strandings, it’s very worrisome,” she said.<\/p>\n
Wimmer said the location of the stranding on a remote area of Sable Island, some 290 kilometres southeast of Halifax, complicated rescue attempts.<\/p>\n
She said mass strandings are difficult to manage even when they happen in more accessible areas of the Maritimes.<\/p>\n
“Sable has extra hazards about being in the water related to currents, related to predators like grey seals and sharks,” she said. <\/p>\n
In a social media post, the society said because of the remote location and resource constraints they were unable to assist the animals, and the remaining whales died shortly afterward. <\/p>\n
The Parks Canada personnel on the island documented information about each whale and collected samples. <\/p>\n
Because pilot whales are highly social animals that live in close family groups, Wimmer said they sometimes get stranded together.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes it’s mistaken navigation, sometimes it’s following food, sometimes it could be that an older animal is sick and they all just go together,” she said. <\/p>\n
“They’ll follow the leader in that way.”<\/p>\n
She noted that even when necropsies are performed on stranded whales, there is often no clear reason found for the stranding.<\/p>\n
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