[AP News] Hundreds of dolphins wash up in Zanzibar

[Mk]

ZANZIBAR, Tanzania - Scientists tried to discover Saturday why hundreds of dolphins washed up dead on a beach popular with tourists on the northern coast of Zanzibar.

Among other possibilities, marine biologists were examining whether U.S. Navy sonar threw the animals off course.

Villagers and fishermen were burying the remains of the roughly 400 bottlenose dolphins, which normally live in deep offshore waters but washed up Friday along a 2 1/2-mile stretch of coast in Tanzania's Indian Ocean archipelago.

They always say its the U.S. Navy's fault for sonar throwing them off course. I don't know much about the subject but I think that is a bunch of BS. Why couldn't have had happen, and why could that be the cause? I personally think it might have to do with rapid changes in water temperature and/or salinity, but again, I don't have any knowledge in this area.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2631&ncid=2631&e=39&u=/ap/20060430/ap_on_sc/tanzania_dolphin_deaths_6

Someone probably has a geographical database of beaching. They still have no idea how the whale managed to get up the Thames?

 

[Moonbear]

If they washed up dead rather than alive, I'd be more suspicious of an illness of some sort.

As far as sounds, sonar can throw them off, but so can the motors on motorboats. I saw a poster presenting results of a study on this a few years ago when visiting an aquarium affiliated with a marine research station.