Rare bottlenose whales in the Netherlands: ‘Unfortunately also mass strandings’ | Inland

SOS Dolfijn reports this. The organization states that the species has only been seen alive in the Netherlands twice in the past 50 years.

Butskoppen can stay under water for more than two hours. They reach depths of more than 2 kilometers, where they hunt deep-sea squid and fish. “That is why these animals do not belong in the shallow southern North Sea,” said SOS Dolfijn.

The nature organization has been looking for bottlenose whales. It would be a mother and her daughter. SOS Dolfijn tweeted on Sunday evening that the search has not yet yielded any results.

The animals may have swum out of the Oosterschelde again, but it is also possible that the animals will be seen in the coming days in the Oosterschelde or along the Dutch coast.

Mass stranding

It is not the first time that bottlenose whales have been found in areas where they do not belong. Two live animals have been found in England. Often things are not going so well. “We can now speak of a mass beach, spread over a large area,” said the animal organization. “For example, seven live bottlenose whales washed up in Ireland last week and live animals were seen today and yesterday near the port of Glasgow.” As many as 11 washed ashore in the Faroe Islands.

The reason? “To find their prey, they use advanced natural sonar. However, this also makes beaked whales, such as bottlenose whales, very sensitive to noise disturbance, such as underwater earthquakes. Recent research has proven that sonar systems used by the navy can also seriously disrupt the natural behavior of these animals ”, SOS Dolfijn continues on Facebook. Sometimes such a sonar disturbance is fatal: if they swim too fast to the surface, nitrogen bubbles form in the blood; the scuba diving disease. It can be fatal.

NATO ships

Although a precise link has not yet been established, SOS Dolphin cautiously points to an action by the British and Candase navies, in collaboration with other European countries, to escort nine Russian ships out of English waters. “The large amount of naval vessels were in the area because a large-scale NATO anti-submarine exercise took place off the coast of Iceland last month. Research has shown that the military sonar used for this has previously led to mass strandings of beaked whales. It is quite possible that the stranded animals are also a direct result of such an exercise. ”

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