“Everyone here is paranoid that every single whale, dolphin or porpoise they see could be a pilot whale about to throw itself on a beach at any moment, so we have to keep going out to check just in case,” says Emma Neave-Webb, fresh from a reconnaissance boat trip after a marine animal was spotted off the Sanday coast.
The marine conservationist, based in the largest of Orkney’s northern islands, has helped to save countless animals over the years, from dolphins to killer whales, and is called out to around five strandings around the Orkney Islands every year.
Yet three weeks ago, she was helpless and heartbroken when 77 pilot whales were stranded on a beach just a mile from her home on Sanday.
Sanday whale stranding
“It was horrific. Taking in the sheer scale of the animals stranded was a shock to the system,” said Emma, who co-ordinates live stranding rescues voluntarily with British Divers Marine Life Rescue charity and was among the first to respond.
“We just stood there, feeling awful as we watched these animals struggle, and knew there was nothing we could safely do for them other than record what was happening.
“We then had to start figuring out the logistics of calling in experts to gather as much information as possible, and getting access to this remote beach was very difficult.”
The stranding on July 11 was the largest recorded of the species on British shores and occurred just a year after 55 pilot whales beached on the Isle of Lewis.
“The response was a real community effort” added Emma, 47, who moved to Sanday in 2015 to become the island’s ranger.
“We’ve had a good track record of saving stranded cetaceans here but this was the first time we couldn’t even attempt a rescue. Everybody is quite upset by it, even though we did everything we could. I think it will take everyone involved a long time to get over what happened.”
Emma now runs a stranding initiative for the International Whaling Commission, which supports the conservation and the management of whaling.
She has coordinated many rescue efforts, including a pod of stranded pilot whales on Orkney in 2019, but said the 12 pilot whales still alive were beyond help and had to be euthanised. She explained: “They were so tightly packed together, and are seven feet long, so it would have been dangerous to move any of them. One hit from a tail could kill a person.
“We just didn’t have the manpower or resources, and the whales still alive were already compromised.
“Even if we had got them back out to sea, they would have struggled and eventually returned to shore.”
Pilot Whales
In a strange coincidence, Emma had stood on that beach a week earlier for a photo shoot with Kris Drever to promote 21st Century Folk, which starts today on Radio 2 during a week-long celebration of British folk music.
The project pairs five people whose lives are connected to the sea with different singer-songwriters to create original songs based on their lives. The theme celebrates the RNLI’s 200th anniversary this year.
Kris, from Orkney, created the song Pilot Whales for the project, inspired by Emma’s work in marine conservation, and a collective community effort in 2016 to stop a pod of pilot whales from becoming stranded on Sanday.
“It was fascinating to meet Emma and hear her life story and the incredible work she does on the island where my dad was born,” said the Glasgow-based folk singer-songwriter.
“Folk songs are traditionally based on ordinary people doing extraordinary things, so I hope this one raises awareness of the great marine conservation work Emma does.”
Of the rescue that inspired Kris, Emma added: “We had a pod of 40 pilot whales come into Sty Wick bay and were dangerously close to the shore. About 50 of us went on to the beach banging pots and pans to drive them away because pilot whales are very sensitive to noise.
“It worked but, at the time, some people asked what the point was. Now I think they realise how bad it could have been.”
She hopes some positives can be drawn from recent events. She added: “We had about 30 experts in cetacean pathology here investigating, taking samples, doing post-mortem examinations and gathering information.
“Hopefully we can learn a lot more about these animals, find out why it happened, and stop it happening in the future. It might help to change policy if the reason was man-made.”
Experts can currently only speculate what may have caused the stranding.
“Pilot whales are very social species, so if one strands, the rest will follow,” said Emma. “The waters here are very shallow, which disrupts their echolocation. If they were feeding in the shallows, they may have thought they could keep going and then got caught out. It will take a year for the post-mortem to help determine what caused it.”
Emma added: “Folk songs from Orkney have traditionally been about whaling, and usually pilot whales were hunted. It’s nice that this song has switched that on its head and we’re now saving them.”
21st Century Folk 2024 is on BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer now, and features on BBC Radio 2’s Folk Show with Mark Radcliffe next Sunday.