Up to 10 sperm whales have been stranded between Withernsea and Tunstall on the coast. Members of the coastguard and British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) are on the beach, between Tunstall and Withernsea, near Hull.

Residents of the coastal Chumikan village reported two adult whales and one baby on Wednesday afternoon, on a shore of the Uda River that flows into the sea. Alexei Paramonov spent hours protecting the pod from wild animals and poachers and saved the baby whale from hypothermia. 

This past weekend a group of hunters on all-terrain vehicles found four dead bowhead whales lying on a beach about 60 kilometres north of the Nunavut community of Kugaaruk. Photos of the bowhead whales taken by Rene Kukkuvak, appear to have a torn tongues and rake-like gouges.

“For the killer whales, I honestly don’t know if this is normal or not,” said Mandy Keogh, the Regional Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator for NOAA Fisheries in Alaska. Dead killer whales simply aren’t seen that often.