Monday, August 23, 2010

Whales stranded on Karikari beach

Today we looked at photos of the whales that became stranded on the beach in the North Island. Nearly 60 whales were stranded with 15 survivors. Here is a photo of them transporting one of the whales to another beach to refloat it.


They have to put wet towels and cold water on their fins and flukes to cool them down. Whales have lots of blubber which can keep them warm in the cool water but out of the water they can overheat very quickly.
Noone really knows why they mass strand however some people say that as they travel in large pods if one of the whales gets sick and doesnt know where it is going the others will all follow and they may end up on the beach. Another idea is that they may strand themselves on purpose if they have an illness within the group and they will die so as not to pass it on. Ask around see what you can find out.

4 comments:

  1. Why whales strand themselves by Isabella
    When one whale gets sick it washes a shore
    because it gets lost.The other whales in
    it's family follow it and when the water
    on the beach drops the whales get stuck. A
    family of whales is called a pod.

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  2. Whales get stranded because they follow each other when one is sick to the shallow water.
    When they are close to the shore they get trapped when the tide goes out. The Whales family is called a pod.

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  3. at is kelly here I feing bon kn km up the whales can come from the sae

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  4. When the tide comes in the whales swim up to the beach and then when the tide goes out they get stranded on the beach. Some people say they have radar in their heads which stops working and so then they don't know which way to go. When they get stuck on the beach if there isn't any people around to help them they get too hot and die.

    ReplyDelete