PREVIEW

Heartbreaking Scenes As 100 Pilot Whales Strand Themselves In Orkney. A tragic but remarkable sight occurred on the island of Sanday in Orkney on 11 July 2024 when around 90 long-finned pilot whales stranded themselves on a beach. British Divers Marine Life Rescue’s regional team was immediately mobilised with response equipment to make their way over to the island to try and save the whales. On arrival, the Medics found there to be about 77 animals high up the beach, having evidently been stranded for several hours already. Sadly, only 12 of them were still alive at this point. The 12 later had to be euthanised due to their condition deteriorating from the many hours they spent stranded on the beach resulting in crush injury from their own weight. The substrate they were on was also incredibly soft meaning they sunk even deeper into the sand when the tide washed over them so unfortunately they weren’t able to refloat themselves. The Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) will attempt to recover as many bodies as possible for post-mortem sampling and examination to try to determine the circumstances of stranding.