stranding

Stranding is when marine animals, particularly cetaceans (whales and dolphins), come ashore, either dead or alive. While some strandings result from natural mortality, others involve live animals struggling in shallow waters where they cannot survive. Mass strandings, where hundreds of toothed whales beach themselves, are a specific phenomenon, with baleen whales never recorded in such events.1

The exact causes of stranding are complex and not fully understood. Theories include issues with group leaders, disease, prey pursuit, parasitic infections affecting hearing, navigational errors due to magnetic anomalies, or even a behavioral reversion to ancestral terrestrial life. Environmental factors, such as oil spills, can also exacerbate cetacean strandings and deaths by making them more vulnerable to other dangers.12