Rúmensku og Íslensku Félagasamtökin Haförn
Wildlife Ecology
What happened with the PILOT WHALES?
Why are they dying?
22nd of July 2019, Reykjavik
Ecological drama happened due to the stranded whales with the low tide in West Iceland apparently on 18th of July (here).
Why are the pilot whale dying? in Iceland, but also in San Simon´s Island, Georgia (USA Today news) where 2 whales were reported as being dead on 16th of July 2019 and other 40 were pushed back to the see.
They came to the shore because they want to beach like we do in summer or they want to eat or they want to give birth.
Plastic bag in their stomach? Like that from the Norwegian case in January. Then, we need to see it. There is a huge opportunity for Icelandic marine biologists to understand the diet of those mammals. And is not late.
22nd of July 2019
On 21st of July 2019 we visited Berglind Arnardóttir at Hótel Búðir where David Schwarzhans, Reykjavik Helicopters pilot (BBC news) were after he was flying near Southern Snæfellsnes beaches with tourists. She shared with us 4 videos recorded on 18th of July 2016 at 19.05 in the evening of the same day when the sighting of the ecological drama was produced. But this time the whale was alive! And from here we can learn. The whale is doing something, we do not know, but has pain. If this pain is of a delivery behavior or because of other reasons we don´t know. But only two days ago a tourist recorded other video of pilot whales which were just beaching and nothing else, or probably the whales were assisting another birth, as Edda Elísabet Magnúsdóttir, a marine biologist at the University of Iceland described to Reykjavik Grapevine today, species is known that travels in large pods and helps with tasks in the group highly while one is suffering or injured due to their close sociability.
