Pod of dolphin's re-strand in Western Australia

2026, July 21. Western Australia, Princess Royal Harbour, Albany Waterfront Marina, Anzac Peace Park. A mass stranding of approximately 12 pantropical spotted dolphins. The pod stranded at Albany Waterfront Marina on Tuesday. Over the next 24 hours, 11 died. Initial Stranding (Tuesday). One dolphin died and was removed. The remaining 11 were refloated by members of the public and returned to deeper water. Second Stranding (Wednesday morning): 10 dolphins re-stranded overnight. Seven died on the beach. The remaining three were humanely euthanised following veterinary advice.

Update 20260723: I checked meteor data over multiple sites and haven't found anything other than normal background incidents. 

Western Australia mass dolphin stranding

2026, July 21. Western Australia, Princess Royal Harbour, Albany Waterfront Marina, Anzac Peace Park. A mass stranding of approximately a dozen dolphins occurred in shallow mud flats. All but one were refloated after a response involving public intervention. 

Will update later if significant information becomes available when I check meteor detection sites. It's too early to suggest a reason why; it could be bird flu, a simple navigation error or something else

There was an unrelated large meteor event in northwestern Australia on the 17th.

2026, July 17. Western Australia, Pilbara region, Gibson Desert, North Karlamilyi National Park/Telfer Township. Large Fireball/Meteor Airburst/Possible Meteorite Fall. Overland. Witness Location and Report: GPS co-ordinates exact; -23.1206183, 123.0419572, CSR WELL 22 - Historical landmark. DMS: 23°07'14.2"S 123°02'31.1"E. Georgia bore camp on canning stock route, few kms nearby. Sonic Boom heard approx 2mins later, heard rumble and distant boom. Colour: Blue, Light Blue. Direction: Travelling west. Time: 07:00 AWST. 23:00 UT Gibson Desert, NW Australia. Duration: ≈7.5s

Marine Animal Disturbance alert for Western Australia coastline

Marine Animal Disturbance alert for Western Australia coastline. Perth to Albany. Duration for next two weeks. This is not as large as the April 15 event causing the April 25 stranding; however, the quantity of accompanying debris warrants a watch. The atmosphere is volatile at the moment. With every incident, valuable data will be obtained to narrow the field of meteoroids responsible for marine disturbances.

2024, July 29. Western Australia, Indian Ocean. Meteor. Time: 20:04. Coordinates: (-34.98, 112.9) (-35.8, 113.57). Velocity: 41.5 km/s. Duration: 2.76 sec. Height: 108.8 to 82.6 km.

Meteor Map – Fireballs Aotearoa

April 15 event

Meteor off Albany watch - updated 20240617

Hopefully, the whales are taking a detour. I'm not overly worried about this just a curious stone. It will give me some scale on electrophonic events if anything does happen. A mass stranding is unlikely (looking at this) however a stranding of something wouldn't surprise me because the field of view is limited and for every object 50 more go undetected??? The time of year is not great. The event is neither good, bad or ugly??? The two objects at the bottom mean the atmosphere is thick further out. I will see what is detected in the next few days, hopefully, the velocity was slow enough to cause any upset.

2024, June 14. Meteor. Coordinates: LB:119.20, LB: -35.07, LE: 120.13, LE: -35.03. Velocity: 23.07 km/s. Duration 3.99 seconds. Height 102.1 to 75.86 km.

Meteor Map – Fireballs Aotearoa

Update: 20240617

This reminds me of New Zealand a month or so ago. You need a major event or a cluster to corner animals. Like New Zealand, it's difficult to read with the data seen. Observations from the public are beneficial, and the lack of supported meteor sightings suggests that it would need a large camera-detected event to warrant a watch for a mass stranding. As in New Zealand, animals will move away from areas that are annoying to their senses, if it's a slow progression of activity. Also, the atmosphere has been free of airbursts in the Southern Ocean so injured animals swimming north are reduced. As stated before NASA doesn't pick up all activity although looking at global data latitude airbursts have been concentrated towards the equatorial regions.

Meteor Map – Fireballs Aotearoa

Similarities between strandings in Western Australia and meteor activity

Last year. 2023, July 25. Western Australia. A pod of 97 Black Dolphins strand at Cheynes Beach, east of Albany. At least 52 whales die.

A few days before: 2023, July 21. Western Australia, west of Albany. Meteor. Time: 12:03. Velosity: 44km/s. Traveling N.W. Duration 2.54 seconds. Appeared in atmosphere at 112 km and ended at 90 km. This was part of a wider and very strong stream of meteors that came into the upper atmosphere that are not shown on the map below. The whales were basically driven to shore under heavy VLF radio waves.  

Map – Fireballs Aotearoa