This morning, I was completely saddened to open up Facebook and find that a dead whale had washed up on Kure Beach. It was a juvenile humpback and UNCW's marine biologists will be conducting a necropsy on it to determine cause of death.
It feels like this is happening more and more around the world. Last year, 337 whales were beached in Chile in a single event. In Alaska, dozens washed ashore in Alaska. In New Zealand, 66 pilot whales became stranded. In Japan, 160 whales became stranded in Japan. Yes, those were all in 2015 and there are more than those I've listed here.
Yes, this is just a single whale, not the staggering numbers above, but it's not just whales. We've had sharks wash ashore, as well. Most recent was a Great White at Wrightsville Beach, a rare occurence for great whites.
Whales have been washing ashore for many, many years. Just like human beings, they get confused or they get hurt by other marine animals, or they are sick from natural causes. However, there's a good amount of research pointing to an increase due to sonar and pollution. There's also a website by the NOAA Fisheries Department for Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events and what's scary about this is the number of significant die-offs where no cause was found.
As a coastal community, a tourist community, it's important for us to realize how important it is that our coastal waters remain healthy. We rely on clean waters for fishing, sports, and more. If the ecosystem is out of whack, it won't just be the whales and sharks affected, but smaller creatures too. Did this whale die from man-made issues? Maybe, maybe not. But when events like this occur, we shouldn't ignore them or forget them the next day. We should remain attentive and fully supportive of the UNCW marine biologists who make the efforts to dig to the root of the cause.
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