230 pilot whales stranded, half are dead, or produce whale explosion! How scary is the whale explosion scene?

About 230 pilot whales were stranded on the beach near the entrance to Port Macquarie, Australia, and the relevant departments rushed to the scene to work together to rescue them, but the local government department introduced that half of the stranded pilot whales have died.

For whales stranded, the possibility of rescue is very small, especially as the pilot whale is so large whales, their weight reached 3000 kg, and their body length is 5-7 meters or so.

In the ocean, relying on the buoyancy of seawater, they can survive very well. However, after stranding, the whole body weight is pressed into contact with the beach, which can easily cause internal organs or skeletal crushing injuries, and even if the rescue is successful, the mortality rate is still very high after returning to the sea.

In April this year, we rescued a stranded sperm whale in Ningbo, the sperm whale weighed 70 tons, which can be said to be a huge thing, when it took more than 20 hours to rescue its life and death, and finally, it was successfully sent to the deep sea.

As a result, soon after, some fishermen also found corrupt whale carcasses on the surface, which had given off a foul smell, speculating that perhaps the sperm whale was successfully rescued after being stranded.

The 230 pilot whales found in Australia this time, although smaller than the sperm whale, want to return to the ocean, but also need to use the power of the high tide, just do not know how many of these pilot whales can return to the ocean after the tide, how many are forced to stay on the coast.

Whale Explosion

For the local people, if they can not help 230 pilot whales back to the sea, then they will have to face a serious task: whale explosion.

Whales live in the ocean, and to cope with the pressure of the water, their skin becomes very tight and elastic, and the gases produced in their bodies do not easily escape to the outside world.

After the death of the whale, the microorganisms in the whale's intestine are still alive, they continue to decompose the food in the intestine, and even decompose the whale's intestine, after breaking through the intestine, they also decompose the whale's internal organs, muscles and fat, etc.

Microorganisms in the process of decomposing organic matter will produce a large amount of gas, such as carbon dioxide we fart because the microorganisms in the intestine decompose food residues and produce gas, which is released to the outside world through the form of farting.

After the death of the whale, the body accumulates a large amount of gas, these gases are difficult to be distributed to the outside world, they will gather together, forming a high internal pressure "balloon", when the whale's body pressure is high to a certain extent, it will explode like a "balloon is punctured".

But more horrible than the balloon explosion, the whale is large, pilot whale body length of 5-7 meters, 5-7 meters from the huge balloon explosion, the pressure is not small.

Moreover, in the whale body, there are many microbial decompositions of highly corrupt substances, these substances will also be spewed out of the body with the explosion, the smell and unpleasant, once the whale explosion, the entire local beach will be surrounded by odor, whale explosion site can be said to be the "source of bad smell.

In 2004, a whale explosion occurred in downtown Taiwan, when the local people found a dead sperm whale, because sperm whale remains are very rare, local scientists hope to bring them back to the laboratory for research, and the results in the transport process, the sperm whale is too bumpy, in the transport to the center of Tainan Ximen Road near the small northern night market, the whale explosion occurred.

The whale explosion resulted in a foul odor that caused the public to vomit, and despite the city's emergency discharge of a cleaning team for continuous disinfection and cleanup, the stench remained in the area for several months.

Many of the 230 pilot whales stranded in Australia have died, and if the remains of the pilot whales are not disposed of in a hurry, the threat of a whale explosion will also be formed.

Whale fall

If you want the whale explosion not to happen, you can choose the whale fall.

Whale fall is to let the whale carcasses back to the sea, whale carcasses for scavengers and predators is a rare feast, they will eat the whale's thick fat, internal organs, muscle, and other tissues to replenish their energy, and in the process will destroy the integrity of the whale's skin, the whale's internal gas produced by the whale can easily escape to the outside world.

With the predation of scavengers, whale carcasses lose fat and become progressively denser, slowly sinking downward. As they sink, some smaller predators and scavengers will continue to decompose until indigestible bones remain.

The density of whale bones is greater than the density of seawater and will generally sink to the bottom, forming whale falls. And these bones will not go to waste, attracting many benthic creatures to feed and nest.

Scientists have found that in the deep waters of the North Pacific Ocean, whale falls sustain at least 43 species and 12,490 organisms, which can maintain the survival of benthic organisms for about a hundred years and become an oasis of deep-sea life.

The local Australian government can choose to use the high tide to pull the whale carcasses to the ocean away from the coast, allowing these whales to turn from whale blast to whale fall and play their last value.

Of course, some of the pilot whale carcasses can also be used for scientific research, making skeletal specimens, etc., to bring out the value of science to the public.

We also hope that some survivors of the 230 pilot whales will be rescued and returned to the sea to play their ecological value.