After mass stranding, NZ faces exploding whale carcasses
WELLINGTON: New Zealand authorities were cutting holes in 300 whale carcasses yesterday, popping the dead animals “like balloons”, to avoid them exploding as they decompose on Golden Bay after more than 600 whales became stranded.
Hundreds of rescuers managed to save around 400 pilot whales on the South Island beach on the weekend after one of New Zealand’s largest whale strandings.
But hundreds of whales died on the beach and the Department of Conservation ( DOC) cordoned off the bodies and urged the public to call them if they found whale carcasses that had floated off the beach and washed up on nearby shores.
“The area is currently closed to the public because of the risk from whales exploding,” the conservation department said.
“This morning we’ll be getting people down there basically poking holes in them, letting the gas out of them,” the department’s regional conservation manager Andrew Lamason told Radio New Zealand.
Lamason said the bodies might be left to decompose on the remote beach after being ring-fenced to prevent them floating away.
It would take several months for the bodies to decompose and turn into skeletons.
Rescuers found no newly stranded whales yesterday, conservation officials said. In good news for volunteers who worked to save nearly 700 pilot whales that swam ashore, DOC said a pod of about 240 were seen heading out to open sea late Sunday.
“Rangers this morning searched coastline on the western side of Golden Bay to as far along the inner side of Farewell Spit as it was possible to go and no stranded live whales were seen,” the department said in a statement.
Beached whales are not uncommon on Golden Bay. Its shallow muddy waters confuse the whale’s sonar, leaving it vulnerable to stranding by an ebb tide, according to marine environmental organisation Project Jonah. — AFP /Reuters