A helicopter pilot showing tourists around sighted 52 dead whales on Longufjorur beach, in the west of the island, on 18 July. Marine biologists are at the beach on Tuesday to take samples of the dead pilot whales, a species usually known to be abundant in the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists estimate that pilot whale populations lay between 500,000 and 800,000.
Gisli Vikingsson, a scientist at the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute in Reykjavik, explained that “pilot whales regularly end up beached.” He went on to say that the phenomenon is not unusual, but in most cases, scientists manage to get the whales back in the water before they die.
Whales are especially vulnerable to washing up ashore when they get close to the coast to chase their prey, with shoreline waters being quite shallow. However, the reason for the mass death of these pilot whales remains unknown. As Vikingsson explains, theories range from the interference of magnetic fields to the role of one dominant whale followed by the others “no matter what happens.”
