Detailed Report on the Mass Stranding of Sperm Whales

Grounds for sustainable whaling

Fourteen whales, thirteen of which died, were stranded on the shores of Oura, Kagoshima last January. Along with the difficulty, which was beyond imagination, of just moving each whale whose bulk was more than 20 tons, the town went through an awful lot of trouble, as if it were struck by a natural calamity.

1. Beginning of the incidence

My home town, Oura Town, is located in the southwestern part of the Satsuma Peninsula. It is about 50 km and an hour's drive from Kagoshima City, the capital of Kagoshima Prefecture. It borders Kaseda City to the east, Botsu town to the south, and Kasasa Town to the west, and is bounded on the north by the East China Sea. In winter, the strong northwesterly season wind blows and the weather is always stormy in the East China Sea.

Around 8 o'clock in the morning on Jan. 22, 2002, I received a call from a person who was walking on the dike in the Kominato reclaimed land in Oura Town. He said that he saw some objects stranded on the shore and they looked like whales. I immediately sent the staff at Economic Affairs Dept. to the site. They reported to me that 14 whales were on the shore and they were bigger than any whales they had seen before. I myself went to the site. 13 of 14 whales seemed to be alive. The sea was stormy and a strong northwesterly wind was blowing. I thought that it would be impossible to rescue them if we worked from the dike side and that we should rescue them by approaching from the offshore sea area. I immediately contacted a major construction company that does port construction work and has large working boats. We judged, however, that rescue work would be dangerous in that stormy weather condition and gave up the idea of starting rescue work on Jan. 22.
Although high tide was 13:45 on the day, the whales could not leave the shore on their own strength due to the low level of that day's tide. After a while, specialists from the Faculty of Fisheries of Kagoshima University, the Kagoshima Aquarium and other organizations arrived at the site. They confirmed that the whales were sperm whales. We found that all whales were male, the smallest one was 12 meters long and estimated to weigh 20 tons, and the largest one was 16 meters long and estimated to weigh 40 tons.

2. Rescue operation

The next morning the sea was as stormy as the day before. The whales were dying one after another. Because every minute counted in the situation, we began the rescue operation in stormy weather.
The level difference of high and low tides was becoming larger, and high tide was 14:09. We began the rescue operation when the sea level was the highest. A large working boat was pulled by tugboats and anchored offshore, and ropes were extended from winches. However, the operation did not proceed smoothly due to the stormy weather. The whales still had their strength left, and they shook off the cloth bands that the divers tried to tie to the caudal fins. They tried twice but failed. As the tide began to ebb, they tried the third time, knowing that it would be the last chance they could take on the day. They were at last able to tie the bands to the caudal fins and wind up them by winches. One whale was able to leave the shore. In this rescue operation, only one whale was brought alive into water, but 13 other whales were confirmed dead.
The ministerial ordinance concerning the permission and control of specified fishing operations, which was announced by the Fisheries Agency, provides that if mustached whales and others stranded on the shore are alive, they must be quickly returned to the sea; and if they are dead, they must be buried or incinerated, or other appropriate disposal measures must be taken in order to prevent the sea life from transmitting diseases. How the remaining 13 whales should be disposed of was discussed for long hours at the Committee for Countermeasures. The whales were too big and proper sites or facilities that were large enough to dispose of them could not be found. We were finally able to obtain the approval of Kaseda City to bury them in the public beach. Many museums throughout Japan called us; they wanted to have the whales to use them as skeletal samples of whale bodies. We decided to process and make them into skeletal samples, and began the processing work. There was still the possibility that they would be dumped into the sea. With this in mind, we talked with the Maritime Safety Agency but could not reach a conclusion.
On Jan. 26, we worked overnight for about 12 hours, and were able to process one whale and make it into a skeletal sample. As it was very heavy, a large 25-ton trailer, a large dump truck, a large 170-ton crawler crane, and other vehicles were damaged or broken, making the work speed slower. As a result, we had to give up the idea of burying the remaining 12 whales.

3. Dumping them into the sea

We could not dump them into the sea, nor could we bury or incinerate them. As days passed, an offensive odor rose, and oil was contaminating the site. All personnel of the municipal government worked on the site. When we were contacting various organizations concerned to find solutions, we received a notice from the Maritime Safety Agency that the corpses were natural objects, not discarded objects, and therefore they may be dumped into the sea. It was a great relief to us. We immediately started to make preparations for dumping.
Another big problem occurred. It was a matter of specific gravity. Experts estimated that the specific gravity of a sperm whale is estimated to be 0.98 when it is alive, and that of the dead whales may be about 0.6, since days had passed after they had died. To have the dead whales sink in the sea on their own weight, therefore, a weight twice as heavy as that of a whale needed to be attached to the body of each whale! This matter was further discussed at the Joint Committee for Countermeasures with the attendance of experts from the National Science Museum, the Cetacean Organism Research Laboratory of the Fisheries Agency, and other organizations. It was concluded that if the gas inside the whales were drained by opening their bellies, the specific gravity should become about 0.7, and a weight matching this specific gravity should be used to have them sink in the sea. We immediately began the work of arranging for clumps of concrete as weights.
On Feb. 1, when the sea waves became relatively gentle, we started the work of dumping the whales into the sea. 11 days after the whales got stranded on the shore, they gave off more offensive odor, and the work did not progress as smoothly as expected. The work started at 7 o'clock in the morning, but the large tower crane broke down, the pulleys of cranes on the second working boat were damaged, wires were broken many times, and we worked in a state of unbroken tension. The 12th and last whale was dumped at 20:19. The most extraordinary work, the first of its kind in Japan or in the world, was finished. One whale of the longest body length required 13 concrete lumps weighing 36.11 tons. To have all 12 whales sink into the sea, 254.04 tons of weights were used. When the last whale sank into the sea, 50 workers shouted loudly and took each other's hands in joy.

4. Closing remarks

The mass stranding of the whales is an incident that will remain in our memory forever. We experienced a mass stranding of large whales for the first time in Japan. It put our town through tremendous toil and financial trouble. The personnel worked 24 hours a day, keeping watch, regulating traffic, cleaning the shore, and so forth for two whole weeks, using our time solely for dealing with the incident, which should otherwise have been used to do our jobs at the municipal office.
This type of incident involving the stranding of whales may again occur somewhere in coastal areas, because Japan is surrounded by the sea on all sides, and it is said that the population of whales is increasing after whaling was banned. If the rescue, burial or incineration of stranded whales is the responsibility of a municipality faced with whale stranding, whale stranding is simply a disaster, like a typhoon, for municipalities in coastal areas. Therefore, we strongly request the national government to extend the scope of application of the Disaster Relief Law and to formulate appropriate laws as soon as possible.

(1) The rescue operation began but faced hard going due to the stormy weather. The divers made frantic efforts. One whale was returned safely to the sea, while 13 other whales died.

(2) Whale burial. They were 12 to 16 m long and weighed 20 to 40 tons; only one whale was lifted and buried after they worked overnight.

(3) They attached concrete lumps weighing 20 to 36 tons to each whale and had all whales sink in the sea off the coast of Nomaike. These clumps of concrete will make good fish-breeding ground.