Beached whale crisis ‘over’ say New Zealand rescuers,

Hundreds of pilot whales die but many others swim away

FAREWELL SPIT, NEW ZEALAND // Whale rescuers were cautiously optimistic yesterday that the wave of mass beachings in New Zealand was over, after hundreds of the animals died after being stranded.

The crisis began early on Friday when a pod of 416 whales were found stranded on the 26-kilometre Farewell Spit, with hundreds more following them over the weekend.

The almost flat spit is believed to interfere with the whales’ navigation systems and is a regular scene of mass beachings.

As low tide approached yesterday, about 300 pilot whales were heading out of Golden Bay in the north-west of the South Island and swimming towards the deep water safety of the Cook Strait.

“It’s good news, the pod is swimming well away,” said Andrew Lamason, the department of conservation regional conservation manager.

When asked if he was cautiously optimist, he said: “They’re the exact words. We’ve pulled our boats out of the water.”

The news came as a relief for the hundreds of volunteers who had spent three days trying to keep the stranded animals cool by spraying them with water while waiting to refloat them on the high tide.

On Saturday afternoon about 240 whales beached themselves about 3 kilometres from where the other whale pod had become stranded on Friday.

By yesterday morning most had refloated themselves and at high tide volunteers were able to get the remaining animals back into the water, where boats were used to guide them towards the other survivors.

There were comments on social media in New Zealand suggesting the strandings and a 5.2-magnitude earthquake early yesterday near Kaikoura may have been linked.

In 2011, 107 pilot whales beached themselves on Stewart Island off the coast of the New Zealand mainland just two days before 185 people were killed in the Christchurch earthquake.

But scientists have dismissed the theory.

“There’s no strong evidence that strandings are linked to earthquake events,” Auckland University marine biologist Rochelle Constantine said. “For marine mammals these events are mostly inconsequential to them.

“I think these whales just made a mistake.”