Whale carcass leachate plumes in beach groundwater: A potential shark attractant to the surf?

With the recovery of whale populations, carcass strandings on beaches are growing. Beach burial is a common management option for stranded carcasses. However, communities fear shark attraction following leachate transport to the ocean via submarine groundwater discharge. Here, a sediment column mesocosm experiment indicated that carcasses can be a localised source of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), phosphate and ammonium to groundwater. The spatial reach of the leachate plume was25 m onshore. Therefore, carcass leachate plumes would only potentially attract sharks to the surf under specific conditions not experienced during our experiments.