More stranded whales are dying, DoC figures show

The number of stranded whales being successfully refloated has plummeted, figures show.

The survival rate was 70 per cent in the 1990s, and is now around 45 per cent, figures from the Department of Conservation show.

The data follows the death of up to 250 whales at Farewell Spit last month after they became stranded.

Steve Whitehouse from Whale Rescue said New Zealand was now among the worst in the world at saving whales when it used to be among the best.

But DoC’s Golden Bay operations manager, Mike Ogle, says it’s not that simple, and each case should be treated separately. He said some information was missing from DoC’s records, which go back to the 1800s.

Whale Rescue’s Jo Halliday said she believed stranding survival rates would go up if rescues resumed at night.

The whales stranded at Farewell Spit were spotted at 8pm but rescue efforts couldn’t start until daylight. By then, more than 100 had already died.

Halliday said that in the past generators had been used to light up beaches.

“There has been so much focus on namby-pamby Health and Safety, and I totally get that they need to have Health and Safety, but it has gone over the top.”

But, DoC said it had to put people first after an incident in 1993 when some people were severely injured working with whales at night.

Whale Rescue has also raised concerns at the number of whales being put down. Figures show 11 whales were killed out of 24 rescues in the 1990s. That figure blew out to 257 whales out of 23 rescues since 2000.

The figures were derived from strandings of at least 10 whales but did not include strandings recorded on the Chatham Islands or Stewart Island or whales that were already dead when rescuers arrived.

DoC says it is taking a more humane approach now, whereas in the past it left the whales to die.

Whitehouse says DoC “doesn’t have skills or the knowledge to rescue these animals, so what they do is they just go and shoot them, so everything is over and done with very quickly.”

Ogle defended the training and experience of the staff, saying DoC was as well prepared for a mass stranding as it could be.