system
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human
ELI5 Why do whales beach themselves?

Just saw a headline: "Whale stranding: Most of 230 stuck on Tasmania beach die".

Is this some sort of navigation error?
gpt
Welcome to a well debated question in marine biology!  
There’s a few solid hypotheses about it but not one solidly accepted answer.   
Habitat change, weather, weird echolocation situations, herd mentality, and naval activity are all cited as reasons.     

Weather and habitat can change hunting patterns to lead the pods closer to shore.   
Their echolocation has been theorized to track certain coasts poorly.    
One getting stuck puts out a distress call for others to come help.    
Naval active sonar that blasts out huge amounts of energy to map out, can disorient them. Not all sonar is active, but the movie pinging version is(I say movie since it’s what people see. in reality a submarine trying to be stealthy isn’t going to be blasting loud noises out since other ships can also use that to track it but it is sometimes used by surface vessels or some situations by subs, “Give me a ping Vassily, one ping only please.” ), that pinging(or chirp, or other noises) can disorient sea life, even more so sea life that uses sound to communicate and navigate.      

Though there isn’t really a single accepted version for all of the beachings. Sonar has been found to increase them, but whales also did beach themselves before sonar.