Fishermen in southern Chile’s Strait of Magellan have discovered around 50 beached channel whales. These whales are short-finned ones and they have been found locking onto the dry land of a beach about 105 kilometres south of Punta Arenas.
As said by fisherman Jorge Carcamo, “Around four in the afternoon we were getting closer to our port and you could see the whales from the boat. You could see two at first and then when we got closer, sadly, we counted the 46 or more”.
The fishermen soon informed the Chilean army and then started trying to catch as more as they could. These massive mammals measured around six meters long.
According to the reports, around 80% of the caught whales are alive and the department is doing every bit of effort to save these grounded marine animals.
In general, worldwide, pilot whales are commonly known as highly socializing species that have a tendency to strand themselves on beaches, but then, despite of carrying out several different theories, scientists are unable to find out a scientific conclusion for this behavior.
As told by Chilean Navy Official, Claudio Zuniga, it is still unclear to the team that what made these whales stranding around the beach this time.
2010 FrenchTribune – Tribune Online Services