Tragedy of 55 Whales beached in Kommetjie, Cape Town, South Africa

Mon, Jun 1st 2009, 11:50

Tragedy struck on Sunday 31 May when 55 False Killer Whales beached at Kommetjie beach on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa.

Mystery surrounds the reason why whales beach themselves with speculation rife for the reason why the sonar navigation of these creatures could go awry and lead to them beaching themselves en masse.

The pod of 55 False Killer whales, a relative of the dolphin, began to beach themselves at Kommetjie during stormy weather in the early hours of Sunday morning. Volunteers spent most of the day trying to return the creatures to the ocean. A few returned to the ocean. For the majority the rescue efforts proved an impossible task however, because most of the animals just turned around and headed back to shore.

By late afternoon experts decided that there was no more to be done for the whales and the creatures were shot to put them out of their misery. The action was greeted with shock and dismay by the hundreds of onlookers but conservationists stand by their decision.

This is not the first time that whales have beached in Kommetjie. According to marine conservationist Nan Rice, there was a beaching of 103 whales at the same beach in 1928. That time the creatures lay there for 10 agonising days.

This stranding of False Killer Whales is the 9th to occur in the past ten years but scientists are still unable to explain the phenomenon. The bodies of the dead whales will be dissected on Monday to see if there are any clues to this tragic event.

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