According to the news of New Zealand Radio (RNZ) on the 10th, there was a boat capsizing accident near Kaikoura on the South Island of New Zealand on the same day, which was a sightseeing boat, when there were 11 people on board, of which 6 people were rescued and 5 people were killed. According to the mayor of Kaikoura, the real culprit is suspected to be a whale, and the specific reasons have yet to be investigated.
Kaikoura is a tourist attraction for whale watching, and there have been cases of whales hitting ships before, but they have rarely overturned, and it is the first time to see such a serious accident as this one.
Why do whales do this? Is it predation? Or passing by? Or is it retaliation? Or are you asking for help? Let me tell you.
Event details
The accident area is located in the Goose Bay area near Kaikoura, which is rich in biological resources and whales are often found here. In the current season, there are also a large number of seabirds here, and the boats that go out to sea in Kaikoura mainly do three things: sea fishing, bird watching and whale watching.
Pictured: A whale watching vessel in Kaikoura
The sightseeing boat in this accident is an 8.5-meter yacht, and the tourists on board are from all over New Zealand, a group of big mothers, they are a group of bird lovers, the main purpose is to go to see birds.
The ship went out to sea in the morning, and around 10 a.m., the boat was capsized, the people fell into the water, and some people were upside down under the boat.
After receiving the local police, the Coast Guard immediately organized personnel rescue, helicopters and search and rescue boats were dispatched, and finally 6 people were rescued, the vital signs were stable, and 5 other people were killed, some of them were overturned by divers from under the upside-down boat.
Pictured: Yacht overturned
According to Craig Mackle, mayor of Kaikoura, "there are no gaps in the surface of the vessel, and it is unlikely that the log will cause the vessel to roll over and the vessel will be lifted from below, most likely by whales." ”
According to Radio New Zealand, just last week, two humpback whales had "unusual" contact with a boat from a local whale tour company. At that time, the humpback whale was very interested in a boat, hovering a few meters away from the ship, the captain in order to reduce the risk, but also deliberately turned off the engine, the ship floated silently for nearly 40 minutes, before maintaining a safe distance from the humpback whale.
The geographical location of the place of the incident
Kaikoura belongs to the seaside town, with a population of less than 4,000, and in the surrounding sea, that is, goose bay and its vicinity, there is a trench up to 1600 meters deep.
The trench is not gentle, but extends abruptly from a depth of tens of meters, because Goose Bay is at the junction of two major plates in the Pacific ocean and the Indian Ocean.
Pictured: The undersea topography and direction of Goose Bay
Such sea conditions have caused the warm currents in the north and cold currents in the south to intersect in the Ewan Sea, so it can provide good breeding conditions for plankton all year round.
Abundant food, nature attracts a large number of marine life and birds to feed here, according to research, 80% of the whales that migrate back and forth between the equator and the Antarctic every year will pass through the Kaikoura Trench.
Pictured: Migrating whales
As a result, Goose Bay is an excellent place for bird and whale watching, where they can be seen almost all year round.
Why do whales do this?
There are so many whales in the waters around Kaikoura that before 1978, the people of Kaikoura mainly made their living from whaling. By 1978, New Zealand had banned whaling, and the town had slowly sprung up to make ends meet, and now it receives more than 1 million visitors a year.
There are many whales passing through here, whale watching is mainly sperm whales, occasionally there are blue whales, humpback whales, etc., comprehensive site topography, sea conditions, whale attributes and other factors, the whale hatching may have four factors.
The first: accidental injuries during predation
Goose Bay is rich in biological resources, whales like to hunt here, and some fish in the sea have a special love for the bottom of the boat.
For example, bass and krill, often attached to or followed by flocks of ships, are densely packed and numerous.
When the whale is preying, it will use echo localization to lock the fish and spit out bubbles appropriately to make marks. Then it sped up, opened its mouth wide, and took the seawater and small fish and shrimp into the mouth.
This is a big scene of baleen whale predation, each time it opens its mouth, it can accommodate tens of cubic meters of seawater, and the water surface splashes several feet high, causing turbulence on the sea surface, which cannot be calmed for a long time. It is said that it is more than enough to put three tables of mahjong in its mouth.
Baleen whales when preying, regardless of three or seven twenty-one, are food in front of the mouth. When everything is in its mouth, it closes its mouth, at this time, it uses whale whiskers to sift, the sea water is filtered and discharged, it can swallow into the esophagus, and spit out the sea surface that cannot be swallowed.
Sometimes, whales can be wounded by mistake, potentially swallowing people on the surface of the sea or overturning ships.
For example, on March 8, 2019, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, a diver was mistakenly swallowed by a Bruce's whale while filming a Bruce's whale eating sardines, but within three seconds, he was vomited.
Second: accidental injuries caused by passing by
Goose Bay, the migration route of 80% of whales between the equator and Antarctica, can spread to ships when a group of whales are single-mindedly "bored" on the road.
After the accident, the Kaikoura police inspected the hull and found that the boat did not have any gaps, which proved that it was not hit by a hard object. It shows that the most likely to be overturned by large creatures is the most likely.
The whale has a huge body, often more than 20 meters long, weighing dozens of hundreds of tons, while the ship that happened is only 8.5 meters, but weighs only a few tons. Just when a whale is speeding past the side, the turbulent sea can overturn the boat.
The third: the accidental injury caused by the request for help
In the ocean, whales roam wildly, it is difficult to meet opponents, and even killer whales live a leisurely life of "eating and sleeping and beating sharks". However, there is a creature that is the nightmare of a whale's life.
Barnacles, the number one enemy of whales, will torture whales for the rest of their lives as long as barnacles are stuck in them. In particular, the slower gray whales, big winged whales, right whales and humpback whales are the favorite of barnacles in their pore nodes, folds, and around the eyes.
Pictured: A whale parasitized by a barnaclad, its entire head has fallen
The shell of the barnacles is a calcareous structure that can easily penetrate the skin of the whale, and in order not to be thrown off, it will continue to penetrate into it, sucking the blood of the whale while following the whale to "travel around the world".
In addition, whales will also parasitize a bloodless whale lice, and in the later stage, a whale alone may have half a ton barnacles and more than 100,000 whale lice. They cause the whale to itch and be in excruciating pain, and even change the whale's appearance and ruin the whale's life.
Some whales that are in excruciating pain will remove barnacles by quickly hitting the surface of the sea, rubbing against each other, and rubbing against objects. For people who often float on the sea, they must have experienced the situation where whales use their bodies to rub boats. They don't want to hurt people, they just want to pass through the boat and rub off the barnacles on their bodies.
Pictured: Whales want to rub off their barnacles or ask humans for help
Fourth: accidental injuries caused by whale irritability
Someone once shared kaikoura's whale watching journey online, claiming that there was a 95% chance of seeing whales during the 3-hour whale watching time. In terms of common sperm whales, sperm whales take about 40 minutes to emerge from the sea to breathe, in addition to the round-trip time, each time you go to sea can see 2 to 3 heads is not bad, poor luck, it belongs to the 5%, it is estimated that even one can not see.
Coupled with the fluctuating weather on the surface of the sea, sometimes when going to sea and encountering big waves, the ship is bumpy, it is very uncomfortable. At this time, I wish the whale could appear in front of me immediately, and after reading it, I quickly went back.
In this case, in order to please the passengers, the whale watching company will let the captain use special instruments to detect the direction of the whale's sound so that the whale can be quickly found for people to see.
Although goose bay large sonar operating vessels are banned, whale watching companies have the equipment to detect them in a low-grade and low-performance manner. The whale has a unique sonar navigation system, and when it is confused by the detection equipment, it will become very irritable and may make some abnormal moves.
Pictured: The captain uses a detection device to detect the direction of the whale
The case of a humpback whale hitting a sightseeing boat in the bay around the Mexican port town of Topolobampo in May this year is an example of a sightseeing boat that is too close to the cruise ship and has been harassing the humpback whale, causing the humpback whale to be extremely irritable and attack the sightseeing boat. As a result, four people on board, one with a broken head and ribs, were life-threatening, one had a severe fracture of his leg and the other two were slightly injured.
As the whale watching industry becomes more commercialized, sightseeing boats pose a great threat to whales, and many whales will have many abnormal behaviors and even distress.
Whale strandings are common in New Zealand
On February 22, 2021, about 50 pilot whales ran aground in Fairwell Sands, near Nelson, New Zealand's South Island, and dozens of people rescued for two days, and in the end, nearly 20 died.
In the past 15 years, there have been at least 10 large whale strandings in Fairver Sands. The worst was in February 2017, when about 700 whales ran aground and nearly 300 died.
Pictured: Whales stranded at Fairwell Shazui Beach in New Zealand
Extended reading: If swallowed by a whale, can humans save themselves?
There are two cases.
First: swallowed by baleen whales.
Baleen whales are mostly behemoths weighing tens of tons, but they have almost no teeth and love small fish and shrimp. And its esophagus is very small, usually between 10 and 30cm, such as the esophagus of a blue whale, which is only the size of a basketball.
Pictured: Anatomy of the respiratory tract and esophagus of baleen whale family Balaenopteridae. (The baleen family includes blue whales, humpback whales, fin whales, gray whales, etc.) ）
If a baleen whale devours an adult, it spits out the person when it filters the seawater with the baleen, and it can't reach the esophagus at all. Even if they are small, when they reach the esophagus, the baleen whale will feel uncomfortable and will try its best to regurgitate the person, causing at most soft tissue injuries to the human body, and humans do not need to save themselves.
For example, on November 4, 2020, on Avila Beach in the United States, two beautiful women were swallowed by baleen whales while watching whales, and after 5 seconds, the baleen whales spit them out. However, they did not feel good, and they later described a strong feeling of suffocation, which could be dangerous if they vomited slowly.
Pictured: The moment two beauties are swallowed by a whale in a kayak
Another example is the June 11 accident in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA, where a lobster-catching staff member in the sea was swallowed by a humpback whale, and it took him more than half an hour before he was spit out, but fortunately it was only a soft tissue contusion, not a big problem.
Pictured: Michael Packard swallowed and spat out by a humpback whale
Second: swallowed by toothed whales.
Toothed whales have very sharp teeth of various shapes, except for sperm whales, which are swallowed directly, and the rest of the toothed whales are shredded through their teeth before eating.
For example, the killer whale, whose upper and lower jaws are covered with hacksaw-like sharp teeth, is bitten by it, either dead or mutilated, and does not even have the opportunity to save itself.
Besides, toothed whales like to play with their prey as toys before eating, and everyone throws them around, and when the prey is exhausted and can't move, they pull me and eat.
Pictured: Sharp teeth of a toothed whale
Although the esophagus of the toothed whale is slightly wider than that of the baleen whale, people cannot reach the esophagus at all, and the food that enters the stomach of the toothed whale is dismembered by its teeth.
However, toothed whales generally do not attack people, looking through history, only once in the aquarium in Orlando, Florida, there was a killer whale in anger and killed three people, and there has been no real case of toothed whale injuries.
generally
There are still traces of the suspected overturning of the 8.5-meter sightseeing boat in New Zealand.
The ocean is the territory of whales and many marine life, whales lift boats, or intentional, or unintentional, as long as humans trample too much, there will be accidents one day!
#Headline Creation Challenge ##鲸鱼 #