MoAD and the Courtyard Cafe are open. Some exhibitions will be closed from 14 July to 31 August 2025 for vital building works. Learn more

Pilot Whales' WA Mass Stranding

From overhead, a group of whales spell out the letters 'SOS' in the water.

A mass stranding of a pod of 97 long-finned pilot whales in Western Australia in July 2023 drove Badiucao to create this cartoon, which carries an urgent environmental message. While they didn’t actually spell out ‘SOS’, of course, the whales did exhibit strange and unprecedented huddling behaviour before the stranding. Long-finned pilot whales are usually found in cold waters, and the reasons for the stranding are not clearly known.