Newly released video footage showed a stranded orca being returned to the sea by a team of rescue personnel in Argentina.
Teams rushed to Nueva Atlantis on Friday night, Aug. 24 after the orca became stranded.
The team of rescuers from Fundación Mundo Marino, accompanied by the Argentine Naval Prefecture and Civil Defense, attempted to straighten the whale to prevent the blowhole from falling below the water, drowning it, said Fundación Mundo Marino.
The orca weighed approximately four tons, making the task extremely difficult.
The teams worked for approximately 20 hours before successfully pushing the orca back out to sea.
Orca Strandings
According to the Orca Research Trust, there are a number of reasons an orca can become stranded.
“Think of it like asking ‘Why did the car crash?’ The answer could be many reasons depending on the particular accident. It could be: the driver fell asleep, a tire burst, the car hit something in the road, the road was slippery, the driver was going too fast for the conditions, another car had an accident, which set off a chain reaction or a number of other reasons (and perhaps for some accidents we will never know what caused them). All of these (or even more than one) could be the factor that triggered the event,” the trust said.
Some of the reasons behind an orca stranding include the orca becoming injured, perhaps getting run over by a boat; becoming sick from ingesting plastic bags and becoming unable to ingest food; or an attempt to help another cetacean that was already stranded.
Orcas in Argentina
A number of orcas pass through the waters of Argentina, particularly the peninsula Valdes in the province of Chubut on the Atlantic Coast.
The orcas that are in the area have become famous for their hunting technique that they use to catch seal pups off the beach, according to the Patagonia Project. The method has been dubbed by researchers as “intentional stranding.”
Every year between February and April sea lions gather on beaches of the peninsula as baby sea lions are born and learn to swim in the shallow waters close to the beach.
However, the babies aren’t aware of potential dangerous predators and the mothers can be slow to warn them when orcas begin to approach.
“A giant dorsal fin breaks the surface in the hunting channel. Again and again, the orca swims back and forth waiting for inexperienced young pups to approach the surf. With its echolocation skills the orca scans the shallow water and receives a detailed picture of what is going on beneath the surface. It also possesses the ability to determine whether the prey is an adult animal or a juvenile,” the project stated.
“The whale positions itself while waiting for the right wave to emerge. The timing has to be right and then everything happens in the blink of an eye. … The dorsal fin appears again, cutting through the water. As the wave rolls back we can see the whale with its whole body lying on the beach. In the mouth there dithers a seal pub, which is stunned by the orca with three or four strokes on the water. Then the whale waits for the next waves to come, which bring it back into the deep water. Those are the most dramatic moments for the best shots. Often, after catching a pup, the orcas teach their calves this hunting strategy.”
