back to article Beached whale on Suffolk coast - Reader snap

The UK media is giving some big play to the unfortunate whale which has trapped itself on a beach in Suffolk. We can't normally spare cross-platform media operatives for tasks of this sort: but even so the Eye of the Vulture misses little, and in this case we have a picture from the scene. A sad day on the beach at Shingle …


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  1. pewpie


    Having your senses pulped into jelly by a blast of infrasound is bitch.. Still, least we can keep scaring off those damn ruskies.

    1. TeeCee Gold badge

      Re: Yep.

      It's a nice theory.

      Unfortunately, while the use of Active Sonar[1] has pretty much gone the way of the Dodo, it's decline has made no difference to whale strandings.

      [1] Active Sonar has an unfortunate side effect of also going "OUR SONAR INSTALLATIONS ARE HERE!!!" to anyone having a passing interest. All the clever detection stuff is done with Passive Sonar these days (listening very carefully with hugely sensitive microphones backed by clever analysis computers), which allows you to find out where everything else is without also telling them where you are.

    2. Tom 7 Silver badge

      Re: Yep.

      That whale beached (by the looks of it) because it was pretty much starved to death. It didn't get lost.

      Mind you it probably starved to death because sonar and other technology helped deplete the oceans of its (and our) food source.

      1. pewpie

        Re: Yep.

        Sadly it is not a theory. Anyone who says it is have obviously never even done the slightest bit of research. A basic google search reveals the facts in a depressingly straightforward way. My first post may at first seem absurd/perverse - but nevertheless that is the pathetic stand of the US supreme court.

        In the UK things are worse - it is almost totally dismissed as naval warfare is even more critical to a small island nation.

        Just last month 2 huge groups of apparently perfectly healthy whales all perished in mass beachings.. they were writhing round on the rocks in agony like small fry in a child's net. It's sickening.

        Or maybe they all joined a suicide cult and went on a pilgrimage... o.0

  2. Pat 11

    Anyone remember...

  3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    'The vital spark'

    There is a story in one of the books about the Clyde Puffer 'The Vital Spark' where the crew try to make mony from taking trippers to see a dead whale. Needless to say it goes horribly wrong.

    Beer for the laughs those books gave me.

  4. Emmett Jenner

    Amazing creatures.

  5. Purlieu


    1. Sample 1 second of "undersea ambient noise"

    2. Transmit that as the "ping"

    3. Listen for any return reflection by comparing to original bit pattern in sample

    4. There you go, Silent Sonar

    (TM) me in about 1985

    1. Steve I

      Re: Sonar

      Hedy Lamarr (1913-2000, Hollywood movie star and beauty of the '30s and '40s) held a patent on frequency-shifting sonar for torpedoes..

      Not a lot of people know that..

    2. Psyx

      Re: Sonar

      "(TM) me in about 1985"

      That doesn't even come close to being workable.

  6. JimC Silver badge

    I wonder

    Whether an increase in moribund whales getting stranded and dying on beahes might simply mean that whales are getting to die of old age instead of harpoons. After all everything has to die somewhere.

  7. JDX Gold badge

    What to do with it?

    As title.

    1. David Cantrell

      Re: What to do with it?

      butcher it, eat it.

      1. Tom 11

        Re: What to do with it?

        Blow it up! as per a previous posters comment, however a link to the youtube vid is much better:


    2. Jonathan Richards 1
      Thumb Up

      Re: What to do with it?

      Take it to wherever Her Majesty would like it put: "Over there will be fine. Mind the corgis".

      No, really, the Receiver of Wrecks must be informed. Whales, porpoises and sturgeon are Royal Fish and when taken in the waters around the UK or when stranded become the property of the Crown, or of the Lord of the Manor, e.g. the Duke of Cornwall if the stranding is on the duchy coast.

  8. David 66


    victimless crime

  9. Anonymous Coward

    That's whales for you

    Whales beach themselves and die, they always have. No connection with sonar. Not everything is down to the unutterable planet-destroying evil of humankind.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Out of picture shot......

    Several Norwegians, Japanese and Icelandics were seen hanging around.

  11. Tim Cockburn

    Whales beached in the age of Nelson

    But I suppose that was from the sonar effect of the bosun's whistle when the jolly tars raised the anchor.

    1. Aitor 1 Silver badge

      Re: Whales beached in the age of Nelson

      They got beached, get beached and as long as they are living, will get beached.

      Sonar IS a problem but really not THE problem. Regulation about when it is legal to use active sonar (distance from whales, etc) in peace conditions would solve most problems (it will still produce induce to cramps producing beahviour in some whales, etc).

      The real problem is that oceans are way too noisy, polluted and have little food. And we could fix pollution up to some point, but not noise or food depletion, as we prefer to feed humans and not whales.

      Tux, as he would also be starving..

  12. Aitor 1 Silver badge

    Sonar not sonar..

    Many whales go naturally to die to beaches.

    As for powerful active sonar killing whales, well, it is a known fact. No doubt, etc.. except if you ask someone who needs it, of course.

    As for passive/active sonar, nowadays most military sonars are passive.


    Side scan sonars are, by definition, active. They are widely used for such things as searching for sunken ships, reef/sea bottom mapping, searching for fish banks, etc.

    Towed radar is incomparable. Sorry, but you might be saying "hello, here I am", and a task force just doesn't mind: the enemy knows their position, they just want to know where the enemy submarines are before they get attacked by torp tube launched missiles. It is needed.

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