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Dear all,
Just want to inform you that last Saturday, 18
March 2006, a total of 93 blackfishes stranded on the beaches of Ponggeran and
Rerang villages, District of Ramsol, Donggala Regency, in the province of
Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. According to Media Indonesia (www.media-indonesia.com) Despite the
locals' hard attempt to save the whales, 30 blackfishes still died during the
rescue (another source quoted 45 died). By Monday morning (20 March), all the
remaining 63 whales already returned back to the sea.
It was hard to identify the species, especially
when you were not there to witness the event (I reside in Bali, which is about
two hours flight to the nearest airport, plus more than 100km of land travel).
However, after scrutinizing the video image downloaded from one of our TV
station (SCTV), I suspect the blackfish to be short finned pilot whales
(Globicephala macrorhynchus), which are known to do mass stranding. The
local weather during the mass stranding was not severe, so we didn't understand
the cause of this event.
To my knowledge, it was the largest stranding event
on blackfish (and perhaps on other cetacean species) in Indonesia. In 2003,
about 50 pilot whales also stranded in Banyuwangi, East Java, very next to the
west tip of Bali. Back then, only one of the 50 whales died in during the
rescue.
Cheers,
Putu Liza
Candidate for Masters on Environmental
Management
School of Tropical Environment Studies and
Geography
James Cook University
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