Concussion
When
a human being is diagnosed with a concussion, it can range from
severe to mild. With rest and preventative measures, including a
reduction in activities that could cause further injury, the person
should recover. However, for a whale suffering from a concussion,
there is a crucial difference. If a whale has been subject to
concussion it will sink and this can be a major issue given the depth
of water they are located in at that particular time. This is when
death or injury can be sustained. A whale also needs to dive for
sustenance, and it cannot rest because it would die of starvation.
This is why cachalots come into shallow water for easy access to
food, and consequently, they eventually strand due to starvation or
exhaustion. Sometimes they come in extremely injured and die. If
whales strand with carcasses stretched out along the beach, it
indicates that a concussion has been the cause.
From
my research on split stranding (which occurs when whales strand along
a stretch of coastline, sometimes over several kilometers and even
over hours or days), it is highly probable that pods have been
subject to severe trauma. Toothed whales, unlike fish, breathe air,
and it is highly likely that these creatures sink when concussed. If
in deep water, the entire pod might decend to the bottom, never to be
seen again. On the other hand, the damage might vary considerably
throughout the pod. Some might sink to great depths while others
resurface but are badly injured. The scenarios could range
considerably, but I think this provides the reader with an idea of
what might happen. There have been some strandings in the past that
stand out as concussion-type events, and I believe it's important to
highlight these occurrences. They appear to happen at a much lower
rate than clumping-type strandings. This makes sense, as a very
powerful source of impact or airburst would be needed to initiate
such an event.
There
have been times when cachalots have beached themselves, exhaling
blood from their blowholes. This can only happen if they have been
exposed at extreme depths for a long period of time. They could fall
to the bottom at a few hundred meters. However, they might be
concussed for an hour or two, or even more. The result would be a
whale with terrible injuries. In the next event, a cachalot might be
concussed and fall to a depth that surpasses their biological
capabilities, let's say in the multiple kilometers. This would result
in death, or a cachalot like in the first instance, exhibiting
extreme injuries. As you can see, when you start putting these
scenarios together, the idea that this could be the cause seems to
make sense. Concussed strandings usually involve finding dead animals
in remote regions where panic strandings seem to happen at certain
places again and again. They wash up dead or almost dying upon
beaching. There appears to be a real struggle to the finish line, as
if stranding is the only option open to an animal that just wants to
breathe, so beaching themselves in a way is just a way to rest. The
whale has no energy, it's injured, and it needs solitude. The beach
is the last port of call. Age would be a considerable factor in
determining who might survive as well. This is probably why some
whales survive out of a whole group. This confuses the rescuers or
people trying to understand why. If certain individuals are at
certain depths when the event happens, it would determine the
resulting injury. So you have different grades within the survivors
that make their way towards land. Some might be totally unaffected
but follow the others. When they strand, the sick ones die quickly
and the rescuers refloat the others that swim off without the social
ties weighing them down, so to speak.
In
my opinion, the mortality rate for these types of events is extremely
high, and it's rare to have huge numbers come ashore in a concussed
state. This is because if whales are exposed to such an event, the
mortality rate is high, and making landfall is probably rare. When
they do, it's almost always a horrible affair for both the whales and
the people there to witness it.
Why
are we only seeing whale strandings and not other species coming to a
harrowing end? Good question. We are; we just haven't connected all
the clues yet. During my research, I have found multiple instances of
mass fish kills or die-offs. Mass bird deaths are not rare; they
happen more frequently than we realize. Sometimes they happen
simultaneously. It should be noted, and its an important note, and
that is conccusion type events make up less than 10% of strandings
and are easily distiguished from panic strandings. This is
because of the injuries, many unseen, that break upart the pod
usually making them spread out along vast distances of coast unlike
the clumping of panic strandings. They can sometimes show extreme
blood loss when subject to depth injuries and hence this induces
hemorrhaging. The Earth's surface is vast, and sometimes it takes
weeks to months to observe the repercussions of a large meteoroid
impact or airburst, which is more common. The time gap between events
becomes apparent only when you start logging in the data, and that's
when it starts to become clearer.
I
presume there is a simple explanation as to why we see whales strand.
That's because they are large, robust creatures that are highly
intelligent and extremely social. Given that they usually live in
large groups, the entanglement of social empathy keeps the individual
pushing to survive much longer than a fragile fish or a lone bird
wandering the sky. And this underscores the deception of what we are
witnessing. It's a hidden story, a mirage of tragedy out in the ocean
that is only seen up close and at the end. We never see the beginning
or middle.
Panic
Panic
strandings are a slow process of mental pod breakdown or hysteria,
and meteor showers seem to be the number one cause of this
phenomenon. Usually, it is simply sheer bad luck, similar to a
concussion, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's a
trap caused by land being in the way. In the open sea, whales and
dolphins can maneuver around obstructive noise; however, when land
becomes an obstacle, it results in disaster.
Can
meteors produce sound, and is it possible to hear them?
Meteors
and bolides are a captivating sight, filling us with momentary awe
and sometimes temporary shock. These fleeting streaks of light serve
as reminders that numerous small rocky objects and even tinier icy
particles, most no larger than grains of sand, enter Earth's
atmosphere every hour, every day. Most of them burn up in Earth's
atmosphere and never reach its surface. Witnessing them is an
enjoyable and exhilarating experience. But can we also hear meteors?
Sometimes, following a meteor shower, people claim to have heard
meteors as they disintegrate in the atmosphere. Some describe a low
hissing sound, akin to the sizzle of bacon, when witnessing
exceptionally bright meteors. So, what exactly are people hearing? It
turns out these sounds are related to very low-frequency (VLF) radio
waves.
For
years, professional astronomers dismissed the idea of sounds from
meteors but that has now changed. Typically, a meteor burns up about
100 km above the Earth's surface. Sound travels much more slowly than
light. Consequently, we shouldn't be able to hear the rumblings of a
particularly large meteor until several minutes after sighting it.
It's analogous to hearing thunder after the lightning flashes have
already occurred.
A
meteor soaring 100 km high produces a boom approximately five minutes
after its appearance—a "sonic" bolide-type explosion. The
noise it generates is reminiscent of the sonic boom produced by an
aircraft breaking the sound barrier.
However,
some meteors appear to emit sound simultaneously with their visible
presence. Is this possible? Yes, such meteors are known as
electrophonic meteors. The explanation lies in their emission of very
low-frequency (VLF) radio waves, which travel at the speed of light.
While we can't directly hear radio waves, they can induce vibrations
in physical objects on Earth's surface. These vibrations give rise to
a sound that our ears may perceive as the sizzling sound of a meteor
streaking by. Since VLF waves travel at the speed of light, observers
hear them at the same moment they see the meteors pass overhead. VLF
waves can penetrate seawater to depths of at least 10–40 meters
(30–130 feet), depending on the frequency and water salinity,
making them useful for communicating with submarines.
These
observations are crucial because Black Dolphins exhibit intriguing
diving behaviour and so correspond closely to the sound behaviour of
meteors. The dolphins typically take several breaths before diving
for a few minutes, with feeding dives occasionally extending beyond
ten minutes. Although they can dive as deep as 600 meters, most of
their dives occur at depths of 30–60 meters. Shallow dives
typically occur during the day, while deeper ones take place at
night. When conducting deep dives, pilot whales often sprint to
capture fast-moving prey, such as squid. So most of their behaviour,
“relaxed day zone” is within the realm of the electrophonic
meteor.
Electrophonic
fireball sounds manifest in various forms, including popping,
whooshing, singing, crackling, and sizzling. If pilot whales were
subjected to prolonged exposure to a meteor shower, these sounds
could be disconcerting. Notably, these sounds are usually heard
before the fireballs reach their maximum brightness. Their frequency
falls within the 37 to 44 Hz range, which is near the lower end of
the average person's audible range, typically between 20 to 20,000
Hz. If you've ever driven at high speed with your back window open,
you've likely encountered a 30-Hz sound.
Interestingly,
VLF sounds detected via their VLF signatures can identify 50 times
more meteors than sight alone. This underscores the significance of
these auditory phenomena in understanding and studying meteors. As
stated below and worth repeating: An average meteor might only have a
25 db sting to the ears however when you start muliplying this over
hundreds and then thousands over hours and ten of thousands over
weeks you can see how a dolphin with highly tuned echolocation could
get incredibly tormented. One observer counted over 200,000 an hour
and another 20 a second. At 25dp each the calculation is
astronomical. Now times this by 50 and the average dolphin would be
in a state of panic whose measure would be impossible to comprehend.
Notes:
Primarily
caused by meteor showers, however meteroid streams and slab falls are
also responsible. Large pods can split under stress. A lot of
research is needed to understand if certain individuals in the pod
are more likely to “panic” sending a social decay vibe through
the pod. Does all the pod strand? Are females or males more prone to
panic?
Reassuring
rescuers that the natural cycle of “the stranding” is an
important part of nature and without it the system breaks down. The
fight to keep whale and dolphin numbers plentiful is a fight that
will always need fighting for.