PLANS TO bury the 33 pilot whales which stranded on a Donegal island last week have been put on hold, following a complaint about health risks.
In a related development, Britain’s Royal Navy says it had “no ships at sea” in the area where the whales stranded last week, and has denied that its use of sonar has “ever caused the stranding of marine mammals”.
Donegal County Council had applied for a licence to bury the carcasses on Rutland Island, an uninhabited area between Burtonport and Arranmore, where the whales were discovered.
Equipment for the burial was due to be taken by ferry from Burtonport yesterday, but this was deferred when the local authority received a complaint from a homeowner who feared the procedure might contaminate the island’s springs.
Other residents in Burtonport are also believed to have expressed fears about health risks.
Dungloe-based Sinn Féin councillor Marie Therese Gallagher was critical of the way the issue had been handled by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
“Local people haven’t been given any information, which has allowed fears to build up,” Ms Gallagher said.
Arranmore fast ferry operator Séamus Boyle said the health fears were genuine, given the difficulties associated with disposing of the mammals.
“Methane gas can build up in the carcasses; this was an issue when whales were buried on a beach on the island of Jersey,” he said.
A crew member working with Mr Boyle found the mass stranding late last week, but the pod of 33 had already perished.
Mr Boyle said some of the bodies had already been washed down below the low tide. The carcass of one of the mammals was lying across a submarine electricity cable which could prove hazardous for any equipment being used to move it.
The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group is investigating whether the pod was the same one which was in difficulty off South Uist in the Scottish Hebrides a week earlier.
It has received a communication from the Royal Navy, which denies it had any craft in the South Uist area at the time and says there is no evidence that use of sonar can cause such strandings.
“The Royal Navy is a common whipping boy in the case of many of these strandings,” the communique says.
“It is stretching imagination to think that the stranding could have been caused by a ship that was not using sonar and in a naval base 60 miles distant,” it adds.