Capt. David Williams, founder of the Deafwhale Society, has pounded the table for almost 20 years trying to tell marine mammal scientists and the entire world that pods of whales strand — 30 days after experiencing a diving-related injury caused by potent pressure changes induce into the water when the seafloor shifts vertically during an undersea earthquake.
But marine mammal scientists turned a deaf ear because they were jealous that a lowly sea captain could solve a mystery that stumped the best whale scientists. The professional jealousy is commonly called the “Not Invented Here Syndrome.”
Finally, after years of trying to get the bloody scientists to support his work and help him prove the earthquake connection, Capt Williams hit upon the idea of how to prove his work without any help from anyone.
He now monitors underwater earthquake activity and when a suspicious event occurs, issues a stranding alert predicting ~30 days in advance of when and where a pod of whales might beach themselves. The idea is that if pod beaching can be predicted based on certain earthquakes, then earthquakes at sea must indeed explain strandings regardless that the bubble-headed scientists insist otherwise.
These scientists want the public to believe that they must continue to study stranded whales to sort out the mystery so that public money will be made available. They are fearful that if the public finds out that whales strand due to a natural cause, the public will see that the best thing is let nature takes its course.
Anyway, on 13 December 2008, the following earthquake occur in the seafloor south of Perth Australia:
MW 5.9 WESTERN INDIAN-ANTARCTIC RIDGE: 08/12/13 04:45:36 PM local time at epicenter — Epicenter: -49.035S 123.409E
USGS CENTROID MOMENT TENSOR: 08/12/13 08:45:49.50 Centroid: -48.575 123.972 Depth 10 No. of sta:114 Moment Tensor; Scale 10**17 Nm Mrr=-8.92 Mtt= 9.69 Mpp=-0.76 Mrt= 4.76 Mrp= 0.46 Mtp=-0.97 Principal axes: T Val= 10.90 Plg=13 Azm= 4 N -0.78 4 273 P -10.12 75 163 Best Double Couple:Mo=1.0*10**18 NP1:Strike=101 Dip=32 Slip= -80 NP2: 270 59 -95
This quake caught the attention of Capt. Williams and on 17 December 2008 he posted a blog entry predicting a pod stranding in Tasmania in the middle of January 2009.
http://deafwhale.blogspot.com/2008/12/pod-of-whales-predicted-to-strand-…
THE PREDICTION WAS ON TARGET!
In the middle of January, 48 earthquake-injured sperm whales stranded on Perkins Island on the shore of northwest Tasmania.
Of course, the jealous pee-brained whale scientists will insist that this was just a lucky guess.
The public needs to be more careful and not jump into conclusions just because someone claims he found what causes whales and dolphins strand. It is true that whales stranded before humans started to use sonar or other devises. But it does not necessarily mean that earthquakes could be responsible. There have bee numerous other phenomenon that could be responsible, solar flares, magnetic field anomalies and many other things. It is alarming that the public is so gullible and inclined to believe what someone says without asking for hard evidence and empirical support. The theory is just a theory, it has to be tested, the hypothesis has to be developed and it has to be replicated. David Williams has no scientific training nor he understands how scientific method works.
He has been bending and changing his theory to fit it to his wild claims and it is not how science operates. Numerous whales survived strandings and have been seen years after. Fin whales fled the sound of the quake 200+ km away from the moderate quake. And this whale did not stand, but swam parallel to the shore. Captains figures are completely arbitrary, like his distance between the quake and stranding site. This theory has so many inconsistencies and holes that it should not be even taken seriously, let alone discussed like it has any merit.
How exactly this submission made it to the science blog? Since when pseudo-scientific theories are part of the “science” blog? This person has ZERO empirical evidence for this so-called theory. There have been ZERO necropsies showing damaged or ruptured air sacs. So this “captain” takes a seismically active place (i.e. Australia and New Zealand) which also happens to be one the world’s hotspots for strandings and makes “prediction” Seriously?
Ok, we predict that this winter will snow. Or that next summer will be hot. There will also be a hurricane in Caribbean. And also that aliens cause whales to strand. Can we also get a “science” blog post to discuss these “predictions”?