Mass Whale Stranding in Western Australia

“There’s a variety of reasons, particularly with this species, the long-finned pilot whales, so sometimes it might be a member of the pod is ill and the others follow. Sometimes it might be some kind of noise disturbance. Disease can be a factor, so it’s very varied. We’re taking a number of samples, particularly the priorities to exclude infectious diseases.” “So we’ve got vessels out on the water and we’ve also got spotter plane up in the air that’s doing searches over every couple of hours just to see where they are. And so far, so good. They haven’t made it back to shore. But we will keep monitoring them.”