The dolphin that recently appeared in the River Dee in Wales was fortunate to survive. Being a marine species, it was not used to a fresh water environment and very nearly perished after beaching on a sand bank. Fortunately, the RNLI were able to rescue the animal and return it to the sea where it could more easily hunt and find food.

Not all marine cetaceans that find themselves caught upriver are so fortunate. On Tuesday 27 August, at around 8.30pm, Greg Fonne took the following image from the Thames embankment, just east of Tower Bridge.

The animal in question appears to be a Harbour Porpoise, or Phocoena phocoena.

The Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (of which we are a part) records around 300 cases of dead Harbour Porpoise on UK coasts each year. On many occasions, we collect the bodies, and take them for post-mortem examination. This is because we want to find out the cause of death, as well as monitoring levels of disease, toxins and pollutants, parasites, and all kinds of things that can only be discovered from taking a look inside the animal.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Museum's whale and dolphin strandings monitoring programme. This porpoise found in the Thames will add to our data which shows us how populations are changing.

Cetacean statistics

Our data shows that in recent decades, the number of reports has increased dramatically. This could be explained by an increase in strandings, as well as an increase in communication methods and their ease of use and, of course, by the ever increasing human population with their eyes on the coast.

While the death of these beautiful animals seems a somewhat tragic event, an increase in the number of strandings is not necessarily a bad thing. It is evidence that the animals are living in UK waters, and surviving to breeding age. Through our work, which is government funded, we can keep watch on the effects of human behaviours on cetacean species.

Please help us to continue our work by spreading the word about the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, and by following us on twitter @WhaleStrandings.

Find out more about the Museum's Cetacean strandings project

Meet us in person at the Oceans Station at Science Uncovered on Friday 27 September

This year the Museum celebrates 100 years of collecting data about the porpoises, dolphins and whales that strand on our shores.

Although the Museum was collecting specimens of cetaceans for many years there was a lack of information about animals around the shores of the British Isles. So in 1911, to increase the numbers available for collection from around the UK coast, the Keeper of Zoology, Mr Sidney Harmer, suggested to the Museum's trustees and the Board of Trade (the goverment department whose responsiblity included wrecks and other things washed ashore)  that the Museum should be notified about any cetacean that came ashore.

After some debate, in June of 1912, the Board of Trade agreed to issue instructions to the Receiver of Wrecks to send 'telegraphic information' to the Museum regarding any cetacean that was reported to them. This was followed by a leaflet being sent in January 1913 to coastguard stations. The leaflet was a basic identification guide to improve the information being returned to the Museum.

In the first annual report published in 1914 there is a section bemoaning the fact that some reports were probably sharks and that the measurements taken 'were not completely uniform' - one early Fin Whale was reported to have measured 80 ft (about 25m) which would have made it a very large individual indeed.

The team had a great time at Lyme Regis, although the weather could have been warmer.

Many thanks to all those hundreds of visitors who came to our stand to talk about whales and dolphins along the Dorset coast. Our collection of parasites collected from post-mortemed animals was avidly examined by many young boys, while the girls (young and old) were generally less impressed by them.

On Friday it was schools day, we had many groups from local primary schools. Below is a group of kids preparing to carry away a stranded (inflatable) dolphin that they have just bagged up ready to go off for postmortem. Our volunteer Sarah seems to have everyone under control.

Saturday and Sunday were open to everyone and we had lots of locals and visitors asking about animals they had seen along the Dorset and Devon coastline. All were amazed at the number of stranded animals on the NHM and CSIP databases and the variety of dolphins, porpoises and whales that have stranded.

We look forward to next years Lyme Regis festival when we will celebrating 100 years of recording the cetaceans that come ashore around the UK

Not really any more information on this story Peru mass strandings currently around 600 animals. but it's an interesting interview with CNN showing the current situation.

I can't get the video to embed as it's CNNs own format but here is the link: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/22/world/americas/peru-dead-dolphins/

I've just downloaded my copy from Amazon, looks very intersesting.

 

The Sounding of the Whale is a remarkable book, an astounding piece of research that presents subtle, original arguments in a stylish and readable (if sometimes mannered) prose. Burnett's subject is the development of whale science in the 20th century, which takes in the work of zoologists, paleontologists, biological oceanographers, ecologists, neurologists and mathematicians, among others. The individual scientists are brought to life and their work is beautifully contextualised. Burnett shows us the many ties that bound whale scientists, disastrously, to the whaling industry. He also does a wonderful job of placing the science of cetology in its institutional settings, both academic and political

 

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/12/david-blackbourn-graham-burnett-whales?newsfeed=true

 

There are some very confusing and contradictory stories coming through about the mass strandings going on in Peru. I have done some digging and this seems to be the best source for information https://lists.uvic.ca/pipermail/marmam/2012-April/004248.html

I’ve highlighted some of the main points below:

Numbers are always uncertain in these cases but it sounds like several hundred animals have washed up in the last month, with still more coming in. The strandings have taken place on the southern border of Illescas National Park, in Piura state.

There are 2 species involved, Long beaked common dolphin (Delphinus capensis) and Burmeister’s porpoise(Phocoena spinipinnis).  Unoffical figures put strandings numbers as high at 3000 animals (these figures may be taking a larger area and/or time frame in to account), although these more offical figures show less with dolphins have taken by far the largest hit of around 600 dead animals, with numbers of porpoises being much lower at around 20 animals. They are all in various decomposition states but they all seem to have washed up with in the last 5 weeks.

The necropsies performed on site show two main causes of death (although they are waiting for further results, so this isn’t conclusive yet), most of the results seem to be leading towards a potential epidemic outbreak of morbillivirus brucella (which has been linked to many mass stranding events, including in Europe in the 90s) with some animals showing signs of acoustic impact and decompression syndrome.

In related but other news, the Cape Cod strandings Cape Cod strandings finally easing seems to still be dwindling on (even though the end of the mass stranding has been announced), but sadly still no results.

So far no patterns have emerged, but the many lab analyses will take months to complete, we may yet find one.

 

 

 

Source: http://www.ifaw.org/us/news/stranding-update-no-patterns-depleting-resources-yet-teamwork-still-prevails

You may remember way back in 2010 there was a campaign to rescue Tom and Misha from living in quite diabolical conditions in a small pool in a tourist town in Turkey. Thanks too Born Free Foundation and Turkish NGO Underwater Research Society they were successfully recovered and I'm pleased to report that their rehabilitation is going really well and the team are now hopeful that release will be possible! 

Jeff explains; "We have had and still do have many obstacles to overcome but, throughout, Tom and Misha have proven to be willing participants. We have been working hard to prepare them for life outside their sea-pen. Building up their fitness and stamina has been a crucial component. Their muscle strength was very weak when they first arrived and they were desperately underweight and lethargic as they had been confined to a ridiculously small and inadequate captive environment. They have since gained weight, their bodies are toned and they are clearly much fitter and stronger".

Some of the techniques adopted by the team were first tested during the rehabilitation of  the orca Keiko, star of the Hollywood hit ‘Free Willy’. Jeff recalled, "We ‘cut our teeth’ on Keiko, which was a hugely expensive and ambitious project.  We learned from that experience and this enabled us to go on and successfully release Springer, another orca ."

 

Jeff added, "Tom and Misha are different again, not only because they are a different species but because they have spent years in captivity and have lost a lot of their natural instincts, which is what makes this project so unique and pioneering. One of the challenges has been to change their focus from ‘above water’ and people, to below water and their natural habitat. If we can get Tom and Misha back to the wild, in my view, it will be one of the great release projects of all time."

 

Source: http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/marine/hisaronu-dolphins/update-march-2012/?&utm_source=express&utm_medium=press&utm_campaign=Hisaronu

 

Also if you have a bit of spare cash, even a fiver, you can donate here: http://www.bornfree.org.uk/shop/acatalog/Dolphin_Rescue.html

 

 

179 animals in 39 days, that's a lot of work! Things seem to be easing up a bit now though, thank goodness!

“We saved more of them than we normally do,” she said. “Of the 179 only 71 were found alive and we successfully released 53 so that’s a 75 percent success rate. That was really high. In a great part that’s due to our fantastic volunteers and our ability to get to the animals quickly.”



Read more: Dolphin rescuers glad the tide of Cape Cod strandings is over - - Wicked Local Eastham http://www.wickedlocal.com/brewster/news/x587877869/Dolphin-rescuers-glad-the-tide-of-Cape-Cod-strandings-is-over#ixzz1oROEaORK