In the North Sea over the past week, 12 sperm whales have washed ashore beaches located in Germany and the Netherlands. The biologists who arrived at the scene stated the death of all 12 whales.
As a rule, sperm whales live at a depth of several thousand meters under water. The North Sea is an extremely dangerous body of water for sperm whales due to its shallow depth. “Their echo sounders do not work in the North Sea, which is sometimes only 100 meters deep. The sperm whales are simply lost, expert Manfred Knacke explained to reporters.
According to biologist Thilo Maak, the whales "just made a mistake." “They didn't make it to Scotland, they turned into the North Sea. Sometimes it happens,”he added. Maack also noted that this is the first time that such a large number of dead sperm whales have occurred in German coastal waters.
The experts also explained that when sperm whales get stuck in shallow waters, sooner or later they end up on the shore. There, under the pressure of the masses, their internal organs, blood vessels and lungs are compressed. Ultimately, the mammal dies.
12 animal carcasses were found on the Dutch island of Texel and the German islands of Wangerooge and Helgoland. The mass of males of the found sperm whales reaches 60 tons, the mass of females is 15 tons.
On the eve there was information that in the waters of the northernmost federal state of Germany Schleswig-Holstein rescuers found the carcass of a dead 12-ton sperm whale. While trying to transport the animal to the shore, the whale exploded under the pressure of cadaveric gas, Express reports. As it became known to journalists, after the explosion, the members of the tug crew lost sight of the dead animal, which, most likely, went under water. “In the dark, the crew lost visual contact,” confirmed a spokesman for the State Coastal Protection Agency (LKN).
Promotional video:
In 2004, residents of the Taiwanese city of Tainan could witness the explosion of a giant sperm whale with their own eyes. A huge 17-meter carcass weighing 50 tons was transported to a scientific laboratory for autopsy on an open platform. And at that moment, when a platform with a tractor drove along one of the streets of the city, the carcass suddenly exploded under the pressure of corpse gases. Scraps of meat, intestines, fat and blood clots settled on parked nearby cars and shop windows.
