Rescuers help save stranded pilot whales
WELLINGTON: Rescuers were trying to save scores of pilot whales yesterday in a remote bay where about 300 carcasses littered the beach after one of New Zealand’s largest recorded mass strandings.
Hundreds of volunteers flocked to Golden Bay, at the north-west tip of South Island, at dawn and surviving whales were refloated at high tide by lunchtime, but 90 quickly became stranded once again as the tide ebbed. About 50 more lingered in shallow waters near their beleaguered pod.
A Conservation Department worker spotted the whales on Thursday evening. But the government agency decided against a night rescue effort because of the risk of accidents.
At the next high tide yesterday evening, rescuers took turns pouring water over the beached whales to keep them cool, while school children sang to soothe them.
A ferry service offered free transport to qualified marine medics.
Even for a country with the most whale strandings in the world, the scale of the latest event “was a shock”, said Darren Grover, manager of marine environmental organisation Project Jonah.
The cause of the stranding was not known, though beached whales are not an uncommon sight at Golden Bay. Its shallow muddy waters confuse the marine mammals’ sonar, leaving them vulnerable to stranding by an ebb tide, according to Project Jonah.
Pilot whales are not listed as endangered, but little is known about their population in New Zealand waters.