Beaked whales strand in New Zealand

2026, October 9. New Zealand, Otago, Dunedin beaches, Smaills and Tomahawk beaches. Two deceased juvenile Gray’s beaked whales were found on adjoining beaches. A 3m-long whale was found on Smaills Beach, while another slightly smaller whale was located on Tomahawk Beach. The locations are a little over a kilometre apart. Department of Conservation (DOC) staff and local mana whenua coordinated on-site to handle necropsy/burial details.

Notes: Regional Acoustic Migration & The Dunedin Strandings.

While a Marine Animal Disturbance Alert (MAD) was recently issued for the Chatham Islands/East Coast of New Zealand region following a detected bolide entry, I do not attribute the latest Dunedin beaked whale strandings directly to that specific event. My disturbance alerts are designed to cover extended, multi-month windows following significant high-altitude airbursts. This temporal scope is necessary because single events rarely exist in isolation; instead, they are part of broader regional atmospheric and acoustic patterns. Over the past three months, we have observed a progressive southward shift in acoustic disturbance activity, travelling from the tropical Pacific down into northern New Zealand waters, and now pressing further into southern latitudes. This disruption is causing mass cetacean strandings, for example, the 20 cachalots (sperm whales) west of New Caledonia. 

Many of these atmospheric entries generate powerful low-frequency sonic booms that go undetected by ground observation, requiring high-altitude satellite data that often takes weeks to become accessible (a recent example being the September 23 Tasman Sea airburst). The juvenile Gray's beaked whales found near Dunedin were likely exposed to this ongoing regional acoustic pulse, driving deep-diving species out of offshore slope habitats into shallow coastal shelf waters. As this Southern Hemisphere influx continues, additional unrecorded airbursts in the South Pacific or Southern Ocean remain highly probable through the end of the year. Under these current atmospheric conditions, further strandings across vulnerable southern coastlines are not just possible—they are anticipated.

Photo: Gerard O'Brien