Photo by: John Bowler, RSPB Tiree Officer
And then there were 8.
This past Sunday off the the coast of Tiree, a small island that’s part of Scotland, a killer whale beached itself and died.
The killer whale was identified as Lulu, a member of the only resident pod of killer whales around the British Isles.
Lulu was a member of a pod of 9 killer whales that has not seen a birth since the 1980s, when biologists began tracking the whales. Scientists have attributed the lack of births with this pod to pollution around the British Isles.
The pod now has five males and three females and scientists believe that this pod will die out.
Scientists will be performing a necropsy on Lulu to determine the cause of death.
This report follows news of a dead killer whale found off the coast of South Africa with plastic trash inside its stomach and a transient killer whale calf death off the coast of British Columbia.
These deaths demonstrate the oceans are a dangerous place – and a dirty place too.
However, animal rights propaganda websites like TheDodo continue to condemn SeaWorld on the recent passing of the killer whale, Unna, while turning a blind eye to the massive problems in our oceans.
SeaWorld and other accredited zoological institutions are part of the solution.
Our oceans are in trouble, and it is only with everyone working together – scientists, zoos, aquariums, marine parks and environmentalists – that we will be able to conserve and save our oceans.