DEATH PACT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3927, 16 July 1937, Page 6

DEATH PACT

BEHAVIOUR OF WHALES THROWN ON TO THE CLIFFS “PHENOMENON OF SUICIDE” The news that hundreds of whales had perished miserably by throwing themselves against the cliffs of the Grotto, near Capetown, sounded unbelievable enough on the telephone, writes L. C. Green in the Cape Times. As a journalist I decided to convince myself, and half an hour later I was driving north to the place, 50 miles away. The sand and the pools between the cliffs, I found, were red with the blood of about three hundred dead or dying whales. Some lay motionless in the sun and their heavy breath made a noise like giant bellows. Circling very low above the carcases were birds of prey, eager to begin their feast. I spoke to a man from the neighbourhood who had seen it happen. The whales had emerged from the waves suddenly, in regular formation, and began swimming rapidly towards the shore. The impact was so tremendous that numerous whales were killed instantly, while the others jumped frantically trying to get to the sandy beach. Not one attempted to regain the sea. With a tremendous effort, as though driven by a mysterious power, they hurled themselves forward. The man who saw it was doubtless one of the few to witness the agony of these whales, described by the naturalists as “sham flesheaters.” And the phenomenon of their suicide is still very much of a mystery. The news of the catastrophe had attracted a number of naturalists to the beach and I was able to interview Dr. W. G. Rayner, a biologist famous for his work on submarine fauna. Dr. Rayner thinks that, in spite of its name, which would indicate the affinity of the creature with the selachians or cartilaginous fish, it is a real whale, even though a miniature one, but a mammal belonging to the great cetacean family. It appears to be related to the dolphin, of which the Greek writer Oppian wrote in the second century that they left the depths of the sea and threw themselves against the cliffs as soon as they felt their end approaching, in order “to render their last breath on firm land.” However, Oppian’s statement was disbelieved by the modem scientist.' In 1927 somebody advanced the theory that the variety of whale, which was said to indulge in same strange habit, had in the meantime become extinct, but shortly afterwards a school of them stranded on the coast of Scotland. Scientists from the British Museum then studied the phenomenon on the spot and were amazed to find that they belonged to a species, the fossil remains of which were found during excavations in Lincolnshire. There are great differences between the “sham” whale and the ordinary whale. The former has large creamcoloured spots above the eyes and on the flanks. But while the grampus or killer-whale uses its powerful teeth for attacking fellow creatures of a much larger size, there seems to be no explanation for the presence of such teeth in the sham killer, which feeds solely on molluscs. We still lack a plausible explanation for the phenomenon of collective suicide, all the more mysterious as it occurs in spots very remote from each other, like South Africa, Zanzibar, Tasmania. In 1928 a school of several hundred creatures stages a suicide drama near the Cape. The natives tried to save the smallest of them, pushing them back into the sea, but as soon as they could use their flippers again, they returned to shore, repeating the manoeuvre several times. They just would not be saved. Examinations of their carcases revealed no trace of disease, nor were they fleeing before a storm as the sea was perfectly calm.