MASS SUICIDE OF WHALES

Evening Star, Issue 22596, 13 March 1937, Page 7

MASS SUICIDE OF WHALES

Scientists in Cape Town are again puzzled by the mass suicide of a school of false killer whales reported from Stompneus, on the coast about 100 miles north of Table Bay.' About 35 whales, males and females, •with one ca]f,_ dashed themselves in frenzy over a jagged reef and landed np in the undergrowth above high-water-mark. The whales were terribly cut about by the sharp rocks in their struggles, and some of them even broke their teeth on the nocks. Only a year ago another school of false killer whales dashed themselves to death in the same way near the same spot, and the same thing happened nearer Cape Town in 1928. Nobody can explain the urge that impels the whales to suicide. Some of the explanations are that the whales go mad; that sand churned up in the water irritates them; that they dash into shallow water in pursuit of fish and then flounder about until exhausted; that they themselves are chased by sharks; and that they are following an ancestral urge. All these suggestions are mere conjecture, however. Nobody knows why they do it.