Over a week after the mass whale stranding in the West Coast, the cause of the hundreds of animal deaths remains unclear.
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However, Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania Marine Conservation Program wildlife biologist Kris Carlyon said he could make a few educated guesses about what happened on Ocean Beach at Macquarie Harbour.
"We've seen multiple stranding events there involving a number of different species over the last 50 years, and probably further back as well, so we know it's likely to be a natural whale trap.
"I think a combination of factors has all lined up at the same time lead to this event.
"It's likely to be environmental factors like the really gently sloping sandy beach coming into Ocean Beach, the break in the water, lots of sand in the water, strange tides - there's a barometric tide at Macquarie Harbour - a whole range of factors that mean once these animals get in that area, they get confused.
"Their navigation is unlikely to work properly in that environment.
"As soon as one whale gets themselves in trouble, they are such a social species that the rest are likely to follow them in."
In the aftermath, Dr Carlyon said he and his colleagues began looking into the science behind the strandings.
"We did a series of post-mortem investigations, just to rule out any influence of health or disease type issues.
"Those necropsies didn't produce anything remarkable.
"We're certainly looking for patterns in the stranding data, and that's something we'd like to pursue further."
However, despite whatever findings they make, Dr Carlyon and his team said it would be impossible to prevent future strandings from occurring.
"Even though we know the area is a hotspot for mass strandings, and potentially a natural sort of trap, being able to do anything about it is incredibly difficult."
Instead, Dr Carlyon hopes that research will enable scientists to be able to predict when strandings might occur.
"We're certainly interested in seeing whether there's any sort of mechanisms or technology out there that might act as an early warning or may even deter animals from the Coast in that spot.
"But at the same time, we need to be really careful that we're not disrupting the natural behaviour of these animals.
"They are natural events that have been occurring for a very long time, but preventing them at the moment is impossible."
