Sure -
The tough part of the question, however, is how much
of an effect they have as well what scale you are
talking about (coastal currents, ocean currents, tidal
currents).
For dead animals, most of the effect is due to
currents - (wind plays a pretty big part as well).
It has been long recognized that some areas of coast
have a high inincidencef both dead and live
ststrandings In Cape Cod Massachusetts in the US there
are certain areas where all sorts of things (boats,
debris, whales) wash up on shore. This is also an
area where many live ststrandigsccur. There have been
studies of coastline topography in New Zealand as well
that have looked at the possible connections between
shore currents and ststrandings
Some silly people (like me) even tried to approach
this exexperimentallyRuRumageW.T., G.A. Early and H.
Lind. 1987. Modeling of current and meteorological
parameters associated with mass ststrandingsf pilot
whales in WeWellfleetay. Abstracts of the 7th
Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals,
Dec. 5-9, 1987, Miami, FL. Society for Marine
MaMammalogy. That one small study seemed to show that
live pilot whales washed up in the same general areas
that floating drift bottles - started at a certain
point in the bay - washed up.
At the upper scale of things, it is hard to think that
where schools of dolphins and whales go is not (in
some way) influenced by large scale currents. For
example, currents can have an effect of productivity,
which can have an effect on where animals forage
(close to shore or not). The ones that get closer to
shore have a better chance of ending up on the beach
than the ones that do not.
There are some folks that have looked at large scale
ocean circulation and the connection with ststrandings
See hthttp/heheedmdrorgeed/intro.hthtmlfor one
version of that story.
Another is to look at the influence of El NiNinjon
ststrandingsn the west coast of the US.
Good Luck,
gege
--- "N.M.Clark" <bsbsp3@babangorc.ukukwrote:
> Hi Greg.
>
> I am looking into the possibility of ocean currents
> causing or
> influencing marine mammal ststrandings Do you think
> that currents could
> be responsible in certain areas of the world for
> ststrandingsnd if so
> any pointers on where this occurs???
>
> Thanks for you help!
>
> Nicola Clark
> --
> N.M.Clark bsbsp3@babangorc.ukuk>
>
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