The empty sea

Bass Strait bays used to support extensive seagrass nurseries but by 1981

Westernport Bay alone had lost 100 square km of seagrass from a total of 150 sq km. Penguins depend on small fish and squid. A 1985 study revealed mass starvation of fairy penguins in Bass Strait waters was due to primary starvation.

Increase in the big number of whales stranding as well as stranding events, including adjacent to Bass Strait, absolutely coincide with worsening seagrass area loss and fish population devastation.

Australia now imports over 70 percent of fish consumed and/or used in feed meal annually. Whales lack restaurant and supermarket and feed bin access.

Downstream from Bass Strait, westerly winds push flotsam and nutrient in surface water even from the Indian Ocean and southern Australia, eastward to NZ, including into the Farewell Spit sediment trap - seagrass nursery, where the mass stranding occurred.

Farewell Spit is not new, and it seems whales have not stranded there in such big numbers ever before.

What is new at Farewell Spit is that a scientific review suggests seagrass habitats were once much more widespread. Loss has very likely worsened.

Migratory ocean animals unable to feed in one area of ocean must impact on another area or die.

Small-fish dependent seabirds are continuing to die in mass low-population starvation events, including mutton birds migrating between the Bering Sea and Tasmania Australia.

In 2003 National Geographic reported that since 1950 big fish stocks had fallen 90 percent.

During 2014 the Secretariat of the Pacific Community reported populations of the four main species of tuna in the Pacific have now reached historically low levels.

This is not just about ocean animals.