Saving A Whale, Cetacean Stranding, Popoyo Beach, Tola Municipality, Rivas Department, Nicaragua

A key factor in many of these cases appears to be the strong social cohesion of toothed whales. If one gets into trouble, its distress calls may prompt the rest of the pod to follow and beach themselves alongside. Many theories, some of them controversial, have been proposed to explain beaching, but the question remains unresolved.
• Natural
Whales have beached throughout human history, so many strandings can be attributed to natural and environmental factors, such as rough weather, weakness due to old age or infection, difficulty giving birth, hunting too close to shore and navigation errors.
A single stranded animal can prompt an entire pod to respond to its distress signals and strand alongside it.