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It began with two live, northern bottlenose whales (Hyperoodon ampullatus) stranded at Cromarty in the Highlands and, three weeks later, another one stranded down on the Solway Firth.  It fell to specialist vets Bob Reid and Andrew Brownlow from the SAC’s Wildlife Unit to do the investigations.  It is all part of the Scottish Marine Mammal Stranding Scheme, an ongoing investigation into the diseases of cetaceans.

The pair carried out two post-mortems, both on sub-adult males, 6m long and weighing about 3.5 tonnes. It is likely they ended up stranding in the shallows of the two firths having become disorientated and separated from their larger social group or from following an ill or injured group member. Northern bottlenose whales are deep-diving species that feed almost exclusively on squid and should seldom be seen from the coastline of Scotland, let alone land on it!  

One aim of the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme is to identify any infectious or disease process present in stranded animals.  One of the Cromarty whales was loaded onto a lorry and taken to the DSC in Inverness for a thorough examination in a fully-equipped facility away from the 100 or so spectators gathered on the beach.

In contrast, the Solway whale was examined on a windswept field as a particularly torrential summer storm whipped up overhead. The only audience was a soggy, very uninterested group of dairy cows! 

Bob Reid of the SAC Wildlife Unit has co-ordinated the Scottish Marine Mammal Stranding Scheme since 1990. He is assisted by Veterinary Investigation Officers based at the DSC Inverness. This project manages the Scottish operation of the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP).  It also carries out supplementary work of particular relevance to Scotland, including an increased number of cetacean post-mortems and the extension of surveillance to seals, turtles and basking sharks.

In collaboration with other research groups, the SAC Wildlife Unit provides a co-ordinated investigation of marine mammal strandings in Scottish waters in order to assess the numbers and trends of stranded marine mammals and the potential causes of death. It identifies and calculates the prevalence of disease and contaminants in marine mammals and improves our knowledge of these creatures making it easier to identify any new threats to their conservation status.