At least 40 whales have died in a mass stranding off the island of Tasmania.
Just seven of the pod of about 50 sperm whales are showing signs of life after the grounding at Perkins Island in the state's northwest.
Strong winds and high tides in the area, which is only accessible by boat, are hampering efforts to reach the whales and attempt a rescue.
Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Services spokeswoman Liz Wren told Australian Associated Press that a helicopter had flown over the island today to assess the situation.“It's going to be difficult to get to them because they are big animals - up to 18 metres for males - that makes it very difficult, and they are actually located on an island off the coast,” Ms Wren said.
Conservation experts are discussing how to help the mammals.
Parks and Wildlife spokesman Chris Arthur said initially only two whales were believed to have survived.
"There's now approximately seven animals that are kicking and looking as if they want to go into the sea," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"So we're hoping that with the high tide and with the staff that we're getting on site, we can actually do something."
Mr Arthur says it is the largest sperm whale stranding he has seen and it will be a difficult rescue.
"We've got gale force winds forecast and the weather doesn't look as if it's going to be kind.
"It could hamper operations in that it could make navigating in the sand flats where these animals are very difficult."
Once rescuers reached the pod they poured water on the stranded whales to keep them alive until high tide.
A team of six wildlife rangers reached the survivors by dinghy and were attempting to keep their skin wet, Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Liz Wren said.
Young whales were among the survivors, they said.
More than 150 whales died in a mass beaching at Sandy Cape, also in the state's remote northwest, in November last year.
It is not known why whales become stranded, but one theory suggests that because whales have strong social ties, if one gets into trouble its distress calls may prompt the rest of the pod to follow and become beached themselves.
45 sperm whales beached off Australian island
Associated Press 23 Jan 09;
HOBART, Australia (AP) — Rescuers poured water on the parched skin of sperm whales beached on a remote sand bank off Australia's coast Friday to keep them alive until the next high tide, after a stranding that left at least 38 whales dead.
Wildlife officials said the whales had beached Thursday on the bank about 160 yards (150 meters) off Perkins Island on the northwest of Tasmania state, and all but seven had died by the time they were spotted.
A team of six wildlife rangers reached the survivors by dinghy early Friday and were attempting to keep their skin wet, Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Liz Wren said.
"The next opportunity to attempt any possible rescue would be later in the day at the next high tide," Wren said. She did not know what time the next high tide was due.
The team had determined that the stranded pod, initially reported to be 50, numbered 45, Wren said.
There were young whales among the seven survivors, she said.
The reasons for the beaching were unclear, but Wren said rough sea conditions and the narrow channel that the pod had been navigating between the island and the mainland could be part of the explanation.
Strandings happen periodically in Tasmania, which whales pass on their migration to and from Antarctic waters. It is not known why the creatures get stranded.
Police incorrectly reported Thursday that the whales were minke and numbered up to 30.
Last November, 150 long-finned pilot whales died after beaching on a rocky coastline in Tasmania despite frantic efforts to save them. A week earlier, rescuers saved 11 pilot whales among a pod of 60 that had beached on the island state.
Whale strandings blamed on wind pattern
Andrew Darby in Hobart, Sydney Morning Herald 24 Jan 09;
A SOUTHERN ocean wind pattern has been linked to a recent cluster of Tasmanian whale strandings.
Of 48 sperm whales stranded on Perkins Island, off Tasmania's north-west, late on Thursday, only five were alive late yesterday.
A Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service spokesman, Warwick Brennan, said this morning's high tide may provide the best chance of saving the survivors, which were "jumbled up with the dead ones".
However, he said, the rescue operation would be complicated by the inability to get machinery into the location.
The sperm whales lay only a few kilometres from Anthony's Beach at Stanley, where 64 pilot whales stranded on November 22. About 80 kilometres away on Tasmania's west coast, more than 150 pilot whales died at Sandy Cape on November 29.
A CSIRO scientist, Karen Evans, and the University of Tasmania's Mark Hindell have found that a 10-year cycle of zonal westerly winds appeared to coincide with a peak in the region's whale strandings.
Dr Evans said yesterday the strong winds generated an upwelling of nutrients that brought the whales' prey, such as squid, to the area, and eventually the whales themselves.
"This year is coming up towards the peak of that cycle," Dr Evans said. "These winds are actually driving the whales closer to the coast, into an area where there is a higher probability of stranding.
"I've flown over this area where the sperm whales are, and it's almost like a whale death trap. There are lots of wide sandbars and beaches, all kinds of traps for animals that go into it."
Sperm whales are extremely social animals, said Nick Gales, leader of the Australian Marine Mammal Centre in Hobart. "Survival for them depends on thinking as a herd, so the potential is great for the entire herd to get into trouble when something goes wrong with one of them."
On Thursday, winds of up to 109 kmh swept past the Bureau of Meteorology's Cape Grim station on Tasmania's north-west tip, as a deep low-pressure system swept south of the island.
"The swells with this, and the resulting mixing in the water column, mean that things can get very confusing for a marine mammal," Dr Gales said.