Hundreds of whales die in mass stranding
RESCUERS were trying to save scores of pilot whales yesterday in a remote bay in New Zealand, where around 300 carcasses littered the beach after one of the country’s largest recorded mass whale strandings.
Hundreds of volunteers flocked Golden Bay, at the north-west tip South Island, after dawn broke.
The 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 ashore on Thursday evening, but a night-time rescue was ruled out because of the safety risks.
Hoping to save more whales at the next high tide yesterday evening, rescuers took turns pouring water over the beached whales to try to keep them cool, while school children sang to soothe them.
Even for a country with the most whale strandings in the world, the scale of the event “was a shock”, said Darren Grover, of Project Jonah, a charity that helps marine animals. It was New Zealand’s largest whale stranding since 1985, when 450 were beached in Auckland, and the third largest on record.
The precise cause of the stranding is not known, though beached whales are not uncommon at Golden Bay. Its shallow muddy waters confuse the marine mammals’ sonar, according to Project Jonah. The charty said deep water species with evolved social structures were the most likely to become stranded in groups and in New Zealand this happens most to long-finned pilot whales. It said the species’s strong sense of pod loyalty made it prone to such events.