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Beached ... volunteers lend a helping hand at Karikari beach in New Zealand. Photo: AFP/ HO/Department of Conservation





Why do whales beach and why do humans care so much? And why do marine mammals do it in large groups, at opposite ends of the Earth at the same time? This week, 80 pilot whales were shot in New Zealand after being rescued from a stranding, refloated and promptly restranding. About the same time, 90 dolphins beached on a shallow inlet in Cape Cod - 50 of them were dead by the time rescue workers arrived.


Our best minds have no answers. What I can tell you, with some relief, is that humans are probably not the cause.


There is an undeniable sense of kinship between a human and a whale. The breaching and tail-slapping of a humpback whale and her calf in Sydney Harbour captivated the city in October 2010. The ancestors of whales, dolphins, seals, walrus and dugong were apparently among early life forms that migrated (with our ancestors) from


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