BBC Scotland News
Three bottlenose whales have been found dead on Papa Westray, one of Orkney’s northernmost islands.
A specialist team from the University of Glasgow has started to carry out post-mortem examinations on the carcasses.
Investigations into the cause of death are ongoing.
It comes after the biggest mass stranding in Scotland for almost 30 years took place in Orkney last summer.
The Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS), a team at the University of Glasgow, arrived in Orkney after the carcasses were discovered by a local dog walker on Monday morning.
SMASS member Marielle ten Doeschate said: “With any post-mortem we’re kind of on the clock, because samples start to degrade, and the more decomposed an animal is the less informative it is for auxiliary tests.
“But with deep-diving species we’re extra on the ball with that because heat generation means decomposition goes quicker, so we were actually really lucky to get here so quickly.”
SMASS examined one of the three whales on Tuesday before a high tide put a stop to initial investigations.
Despite a noticeable bloating after lying out in the sun, the team found that the whales had all been healthy – though they had not been feeding recently.
SMASS will continue its post-mortem examinations at Vestness in Papa Westray on Wednesday to try to determine a cause of death.
Bottlenose whales are deep-diving mammals endemic to the North Atlantic.
They are usually found at 800ft (244m) below sea level where there are no predators, feeding on squid.
SMASS director Dr Andrew Brownlow, a veterinary pathologist, told BBC Scotland News: “We’re getting many more species that we’d normally see further south in warmer waters that seem to be coming up here more frequently in bigger numbers.”
He said the reason for the shift from their natural habitat remain unconfirmed, but that it ultimately seemed to be as a result of climate change.
‘We can learn so much’
However, for Dr Brownlow and his team, the discovery of the whales was not entirely negative.
He added: “As sad as it is that they strand like this, we can learn so much about them, we can learn about the individual but also learn about the species – a species of which we know very little.”
The carcasses were discovered by local firefighter Daniel Elves, who was walking his dogs when the animals “loomed out of the mist”.
The islanders had just celebrated their annual Papay Fun Weekend, which sees a large increase in its normal population of approximately 70 people for an annual get-together.
“I actually sat down and shed a tear at the colour of the water,” Mr Elves said.
“You couldn’t have made it any redder.”
SMASS attended a similar scene last year when an entire pod of whales was found washed ashore on Tresness Beach, on the island of Sanday, in the largest mass stranding since 1995.
“July is a particularly bad month for strandings,” said Dr Brownlow.
“In 2023, there was a stranding of 55 pilot whales on the Isle of Lewis.
“Almost exactly a year later, 77 of them came in to Sanday.”
