Concussion and Panic strandings in whale species update. Previous content with updates.

 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.