9 Blue Whales entrapped by ice and die off coast of Newfoundland

Such deaths are unfortunate but not rare but 9 is considered an especially large amount to die at one time. "Other entrapments have been one animal, two animals, sometimes up to four animals, so nine is unusual," Jack Lawson, a scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada said. Mr. Lawson noted that "pack ice is almost like a living, moving beast" and that this year in the area "it's sort of been bottlenecked in there." It is a significant loss, Fisheries and Oceans said. Numbers suggest the 9 dead whales, who died after being trapped under ice and unable to breath, made up about 4 percent of the blue whale population in the Atlantic Ocean.