NATURALIST'S 



NOTEBOOK 



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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ,4 paZe shou/der Maze is q/ten visiMe on 

 the brownish-black short-finned pilot whale. • Short-finned pibt whales 

 stranded on the beach in January 2005. • Pilot whales travel in pods. Here 

 their unusual heads are visible. • Members of the stranding network spent 

 many hours gathering samples from the animab that washed ashore. 



Stranded: Dead or Alive 



A 



J. \l sunrise on Jan. 15, 2005, a 

 National Park Service ranger walking along 

 the cold beach in southern Nags Head makes a 

 glim discovery — 33 stranded whales. 



He calls Karen Sayles, the National 

 Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

 (NOAA) stranding response contact on the 

 Outer Banks, to report the 1 5 dead whales and 

 the 18 still alive in the surf. 



Through a phone conversation with the 

 ranger, Sayles determines the animals are pilot 

 whales. She calls Aleta Hohn, a NOAA marine 

 biologist and cetacean specialist in Beaufort, 



By Jamie Harris 



who becomes the onsite coordinator — and a 

 major detective — in this stranding mystery. 



All 33 pilot whales at Nags Head 

 eventually die or are euthanized — pushing the 

 often-forgotten short-finned pilot whale into 

 headlines around the country. 



Also, that day and the next, one minke 

 whale and two dwarf sperm whales strand and 

 die on North Carolina beaches. 



"North Carolina experiences the highest 

 number of strandings, per unit length of beach, 

 of any state along the Atlantic or Gulf coasts 

 — 139 marine mammals stranded in North 



Carolina in 2004," according to the marine 

 mammal standing network. 



Despite their common name, pilot whales 

 are not truly whales. Rather, they are from 

 the same family as dolphins — Gbbicephala 

 melaena (long-finned pilot whales) and 

 Gbbicephala macrorhynchus (short-tinned). 



In the past, "the whalers called the larger 

 ones whales," says Hohn. "The names cany 

 over from a long time ago by common people 

 not worried about science." 



Known as "potheads" and "blackfish," 



Continued 



Coastwatch I Autumn 2006 I www.ncseagrant.org 27 



