Lost

Beached Sperm Whales, Gibraltar Point, Skegness

There's a strange sync with 'Gibraltar' at the moment. There have been dozens of earthquakes in the Straits of Gibraltar these past couple of weeks. How sad to see these dead and dying creatures of the sea lose their way and somehow come to rest at Gibraltar Point, near Skegness in the UK.

As it turns out, these are not the only ones in the area to have lost their bearings.

From the 'Lincolnshire Free Press/Spalding Guardian' newspaper we read...

Residents along the east coast of Britain are praying they will not see a repeat of the tragedies seen in Skegness and Hunstanton where six whales have now washed up on the beach.

Hundreds of people from all over the East Midlands flocked to Skegness to see three dead whales on Central Beach before they were removed to Sheffield for rendering last Wednesday. A fourth whale that beached of former Ministry of Defence (MOD) land in Wainfleet remains there and a fifth was removed from Hunstanton a week ago.

Today, as staff from the Hunstanton Sealife Centre worked to ease the suffering of another whale beached there at about 7.30am, residents were asking why whales keep straying into the North Sea - and will we again see a repeat of the distressing scenes of last week?

The whale that beached in Hunstanton this morning brings the total in Germany, the Netherlands, France and the UK to 29.

Rob Deaville, of the Zoological Society of London, was one of the officers who performed the autopsy of a whale in Skegness.

Mr Deaville was in touch with Hunstanton when the Skegness Standard spoke to him. He said “We are currently helping to manage the whale’s passing.

“It may be that it gets washed out alive in the high tide but the signs are not good."

“We are appealing to the public to stay away so the whale does not become any more distressed.
“Should the whale die we will again visit Hunstanton to try to understand why this keeps happening."

“There have now been 29 whales wash up and die in the North Sea and we are in contact with our colleagues in Germany, the Netherlands and France to try and find the answer.

“It is however still far too early to say whether the whales are part of one bachelor pod or separate pods are coming into the North Sea.”

On a different note today...

Japan's Sakurajima Volcano erupts