Tales of Whales and Plagues
TALES OF WHALES AND PLAGUES It is what I hoped would not happen. More whales died . " Pilot whales Tasmania: Almost 400 die in Australia's worse stranding " - that was the headline to the article on the BBC website this morning September 23, 2000. "Strand" means to leave a sea creature aground on a shore. Hundreds of pilot whales were found beached on Tasmania's west coast on Monday, Fifty whales were saved by late on Wednesday. Another 30 remained. The article said, "The stranding, one of the largest recorded globally , eclipses a previous national record of 320 set in Western Australia in 1996." On Monday the first rescuers saw about 270 whales stranded, but on Tuesday they saw another 200 nearby as they flew over the area in a helicopter. The huge creatures, 22ft (7m) long and we...