Hundreds of pilot whales were found dead in a mass stranding today (Friday) near the town of Farwell Spit, New Zealand. More than 400 pilot whales washed up on a narrow stretch of land, with at least 250 of them already dead.
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Takaka Operations Manager Andrew Lamason acknowledged the great work done by whale rescue group Project Jonah.
A human chain of volunteers were in water up to their necks trying to ward the whales further out and they say it appears the 100 that were stranded were re-floated successfully. “A refloat of over 100 whales took place on the high tide around 10.30 am Friday morning”.
Authorities were asking for fit volunteers to travel to the beach and help with the rescue efforts.
Hundreds of whales have died overnight on a New Zealand beach after a mass stranding thought to be the largest in decades.
There are 300 volunteers working onsite alongside staff from the Department of Conservation and organisation Project Jonah, with some people coming across the country to help.
However, he added that there was still a chance that they might turn back into Golden Bay.
The scale of the latest event “was a shock”, even for a country with the most whale strandings in the world, said Darren Grover of Project Jonah, a marine environmental group. The night before, officials were notified that a pod of whales had wandered into the shallow bay, but decided it was too risky to venture out in the dark, the department said in a statement. One thousand whales beached on the Chatham Islands in 1918, and 450 were found stranded in Auckland in 1985.
Farewell Spit is notorious as a “whale trap”, having been the site of several strandings in the past.
Department spokesman Herb Christophers said there were so many whale carcasses that it was hard for the volunteers to get the living animals back into the water.
DOC ranger Kath Inwood said in a statement that it was too early to tell if the ones that had been rescued would eventually head out to sea to join other whales or head back to the beach. In the most recent incident, 98 pilot whales were stranded in February 2015, and in January 2014, 70 whales ran aground in two separate beachings, according to the New Zealand Herald.
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The volunteers are staying with the whales but the next refloat attempt is not expected until Saturday.
