{"id":557932,"date":"2026-04-30T01:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T01:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/557932\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T01:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T01:51:10","slug":"lewis-stranding-offers-clues-to-pilot-whales-deep-water-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/557932\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis stranding offers clues to pilot whales&#8217; deep water lives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The researchers said long-finned pilot whales were a deep water species and &#8220;notoriously difficult&#8221; to study in the wild.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was possible to take tissue samples from stranded animals, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iaea.org\/topics\/nuclear-science\/isotopes\/stable-isotopes\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stable isotope, external<\/a> analysis was used to reconstruct their feeding history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The data indicated that the pod had been feeding primarily along the edge of the continental shelf and a slope down into deeper offshore waters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The area is believed to support substantial fish and squid populations during spring and early summer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The scientists said the animals were in good nutritional condition at the time of death, but their stomachs were empty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This raised questions about their foraging activity in the immediate period before stranding, the team said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They added that the study was the first direct evidence long-finned pilot whales use shelf-slope habitats as important seasonal feeding grounds, and how that places them at risk of stranding in shallower waters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.scot\/landscapes-and-habitats\/habitat-types\/coast-and-seas\/large-scale-features-and-marine-protected-areas\/continental-slope\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The continental slope, external<\/a> is a geological feature where the seabed slopes down from shallower seas nearer the coast to the deep ocean.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In some places the slope is a long, gentle gradient but in others it is steep. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Different water currents mix there and nutrients they churn up create a habitat that attracts plankton, fish and larger animals such as whales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The researchers said long-finned pilot whales were a deep water species and &#8220;notoriously difficult&#8221; to study in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-557932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}