"So devastating"
spit, their lifeless round eyes staring and mouths gaping.
‘‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’’ volunteer Petra Dubois said with tears in her eyes. ‘‘It’s just so unbelievably sad to see all these bodies; so many lives gone and so many that might not survive. Just so devastating, I really don’t know what to say.’’
Another volunteer Catherine Trundle wondered if the whales were re-stranding because they were trying to find their families, babies and mothers.
About 200 metres out in the shallows, a woman cupped water in her hands and poured it over a lone whale as she sung a sorrowful song in an attempt to comfort to the dying creature. Some people bonded with particular whales, and cried as they stroked and held the giant bodies. A baby whale moved off the sand and swam, and a group of people led it into deeper water.
The whales arrived in the bay during Thursday night and 70 per cent were dead by the morning.
Strandings are complex events and there are many reasons offered as to why.
Whales that strand in groups are usually deep water species with highly evolved social structures.
Whatever the reason for the initial stranding, the strong social bonds of these animals can draw the rest of the pod in.
By lunchtime, hundreds of volunteers had waded waist-deep in cold seawater as they attempted to push the whales back out to sea. ‘‘They just don’t seem to want to move,’’ one DOC worker said.
‘‘We don’t know why, but they are just staying put. We just hope we can get them moving, because the tide’s going out now.’’
DOC worker Amanda Harvey was in the water warning people to step back from a large pilot whale at least four metres long. Thrashing its powerful tail, volunteers recoilled and watched. ‘‘At the moment, we’re running out of tide,’’ Harvey said.
‘‘But we’re just trying to shift them out into deeper water and split up the pod, it’s not what we want to do, but it’s the only thing we can right now.’’
Volunteers covered the stricken whales in wet towels and were pouring buckets of salt water over the thick dark skin, before regrouping today.
The bodies of those that have died will likely be dragged down the spit to rot silently, the bones a reminder of a mysterious tragedy.