Incidents across northern Europe on 26 and 27 July have left scientists trying to understand why so many of the deep-diving whales have appeared
A series of strandings of one of the world’s deepest dwelling and most rarely seen types of whale in the last few days has left experts baffled over why they might have appeared in such numbers.
Beaked whales are used to deep ocean waters and are so rarely seen that some species have only ever been identified through dead specimens. But on 26 and 27 July there were reports from western Ireland, Orkney in Scotland and the Netherlands of these whales being stranded, raising concerns that human actions could be implicated in the animals’ deaths.
