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May 13, 2024\r\n\r\nA pod of whales was sighted off the coast three days ago.\r\n\r\nThey had been slowly circling like an oversized carousel for over\r\n\r\ntwenty-<\/span>four hours, always in the same position. It was and is not\r\n\r\nuncommon for whales to cruise our shorelines but rare that they\r\n\r\nwould stand off shore at the same location for such a long period\r\n\r\nof time. Marine biologists and researchers from the University of\r\n\r\nNorthern California were taken out to the site by local fisherman,\r\n\r\ntinuing their migration to the northern seas. Instead they floated en\r\n\r\nmasse in the relatively shallow waters 300 meters or so off shore.\r\n\r\nThen, early this morning I received a call that the pod had\r\n\r\nsuddenly broken from their schooled mass and spread themselves\r\n\r\nboth north and south along the coast, and all was as if in coordi -\r\n\r\nnation. Where once was a massive cluster of nearly 50 whales\r\n\r\nnow a single line spread almost evenly in the waters along the\r\n\r\nbeach. The advantage of being the owner of your own small-town\r\n\r\nnewspaper and a pilot has its payoff as I was able to quickly get to\r\n\r\nmy plane at the airfield and be flying over the site in less than 30\r\n\r\nminutes from the call.\r\n\r\nFrom an altitude of 500 feet I was afforded a clear view of\r\n\r\nthe line of whales whose glistening bodies gently rolled with the\r\n\r\nshallow waves from the beginning of the out-going tide. Then,\r\n\r\ninexplicably they turned and began swimming toward the beach. In\r\n\r\ndisbelief I watched as one-by-one the whales beached themselves.\r\n\r\n4.<\/span>This was not a gentle maneuver as if they were being washed up on\r\n\r\nthe shore by the waves but rather a forced physical effort to drive\r\n\r\nthemselves high up onto the gravelly beach. Once there they began\r\n\r\nto suffer in earnest.\r\n\r\nAll was the same as each of the whales lunged out of the water.\r\n\r\nThe only variation was a large bull whale that tried to turn back as\r\n\r\nhe neared the shore. His escape efforts were in vain as others of the\r\n\r\npod rammed into him broadside. The sheer momentum of the pod\r\n\r\ndrove him up onto the shoreline with the others.\r\n\r\nAbove the beach, concerned townsfolk from Santa Marina began\r\n\r\nto show up, maybe twenty or so hardy souls. Soon they had all\r\n\r\nmoved down to the shoreline, desperately trying to push the whales\r\n\r\nback into the deeper water. No matter how they concerted their\r\n\r\nefforts the whales were of one mind and that was to maintain their<\/span>\r\n\r\nposition on the beach. I circled above the scene for nearly two\r\n\r\nhours before fuel became an issue. I returned to the airfield and\r\n\r\nquickly refueled. By the time I returned some of the whales had al -\r\n\r\nready died. Over the next several hours most of the pod was either\r\n\r\ndead or dying.\r\n\r\nIt was during my constant circling of the beach that I noticed one\r\n\r\nsolitary whale floating just below the surface of the water offshore. I\r\n\r\nprobably wouldn\u2019t have sighted the whale at all save for the fact that\r\n\r\nthe whale was pure white, high contrast with the deep mystic blue\r\n\r\nof the Pacific. The white whale lying dormant in the water facing\r\n\r\nthe shore, its flukes gently moving against the tide to help maintain\r\n\r\nthat position. It was odd but there was a sense that the whale was\r\n\r\nwatching the frantic activity onshore. Occasionally it would break\r\n\r\naway and swim parallel to the shore but always at the same distance\r\n\r\nfrom the dry side of the beach.\r\n\r\n5.<\/span>Cell phone contact with a friend of mine, Peter Twofin an assis-\r\n\r\ntant trainer at Water Whirled who was one of many trying to save the\r\n\r\nwhales, told me that all the whales save for two large adults were\r\n\r\ndead. He indicated that their prognosis was grim at best.\r\n\r\nAs I began to bank turning back to the airport I watched as\r\n\r\nthe white whale like the others before began swimming towards\r\n\r\nthe shore. People dashed from the shore to head it off, but it was\r\n\r\nobvious that their efforts would have little effect. And, if all that had<\/span>\r\n\r\nhappened was not odd enough already, suddenly two dolphins\r\n\r\nbreached near the whale. In the most amazing concerted effort\r\n\r\nthe two much smaller mammals were able to turn the massive\r\n\r\nwhite whale ramming at it head on, eventually turning it back to\r\n\r\nthe depths.\r\n\r\nMy fuel was impossibly low, and so it was that I raced back,\r\n\r\nrefueled and again, flew back to the shoreline. By the time I\r\n\r\nreturned the white whale and the dolphins were nowhere to be\r\n\r\nseen. The onshore activity had turned from a frenzied rescue to\r\n\r\nslow-moving remorse as the town\u2019s people stood about watching\r\n\r\nhelplessly as the last two whales died.\r\n\r\nI was depressed beyond words.\r\n\r\nWhy would these marvelous creatures do such a thing?\r\n\r\nWhat an awful waste of life!<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Excerpted with permission Santa Marina News By Darren Michaels Santa Marina, California May 13, 2024 A pod of whales was sighted off the coast three days ago. They had been slowly circling like an oversized carousel for over twenty-four hours, always in the same position. It was and is not uncommon for whales to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1319,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions\/1319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephencosgrove.com\/bookstore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}