Yesterday, biologists investigating the recent mass stranding of beaked whales in the Ionian Sea reported a rise in the body count. At least 7, and possibly 8, whales are now known to have stranded on the Greek island of Corfu, in addition to the mother and calf that stranded in Calabria, Italy. (The mother died; the calf was led back into deeper waters, and no one knows its fate.) As one of the biologists has observed, it seems reasonable to think that other animals died at sea and did not make it to shore.
Judging by their decomposition, all of the newly discovered whales stranded around the same time as the previously discovered ones – which happens to be when a major Italian naval exercise was taking place in the Gulf of Taranto, directly across from Corfu on the Ionian Sea. The event looks increasingly like another mass mortality caused by naval training.
More soon.