Yahoo News 28 Dec 09;
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Some 125 pilot whales died in New Zealand after stranding on the beach over the weekend — but vacationers and conservation workers Sunday managed to coax 43 others back out to sea.
Rescuers monitored the survivors as they swam away from Colville Beach on North Island's Coromandel peninsula, and by Monday morning they were reported well out to sea.
Department of Conservation workers and hundreds of volunteers helped re-float the 43 whales at high tide. The volunteers covered the stranded mammals in sheets and kept them wet through the day.
"Some 63 pilot whales stranded ... but it looks pretty good, we've got 43 live ones," Department of Conservation ranger Steve Bolten said as the pod swam out to sea.
Bolten said one of the whales may have been sick, or their sonar may have led them into the shallow harbor and they couldn't find their way out again.
Meanwhile on northern South Island, 105 long-finned pilot whales died on Saturday, conservation officials said Monday.
Golden Bay biodiversity program manager Hans Stoffregen said they were discovered by a tourist plane pilot and only 30 were alive when conservation workers arrived.
"They were in bad shape. By the time we got there two-thirds of them had already died. We had to euthanize the rest," he said.
The whales had been out of the water for a long time.
"It has been quite hot and they were very distressed. You could see the pain and suffering in their eyes," he was quoted telling the "Southland Times" newspaper
Because the site is part of a natural reserve, the 105 whale carcasses were left to decompose where they stranded, Stoffregen said.
Large numbers of whales become stranded on New Zeland's beaches each summer as they pass by on their way to breeding grounds from Antarctic waters. Scientists so far have been unable to explain why whales become stranded.
More than 125 whales die in New Zealand strandings
Yahoo News 28 Dec 09;
NELSON, New Zealand (AFP) – More than 125 whales have died in two separate strandings in New Zealand, conservation officials said Monday.
At Farewell Spit, west of the South Island tourist town of Nelson, 105 long-finned pilot whales died in a mass beaching on Saturday, while 21 pilot whales died Sunday at a beach on the east coast of the North Island.
Both areas have a history of whale strandings.
Conservation department official Hans Stoffregen said none of the stranded pod at Farewell Spit could be saved, the Nelson Mail newspaper reported.
"They were in bad shape. By the time we got there two-thirds of them had already died. We had to euthanise the rest," he said.
"It was horrible but nothing could have been done to save them. It was the most humane thing to do."
The whales had been out of the water for a long time "and they were very distressed. You could see the pain and suffering in their eyes."
Another dead whale was found washed up at a nearby beach on Monday and Stoffregen said there could be others that died in the area but had not yet been located.
On the Coromandel Peninsula in the North Island, 21 whales died from a pod of 63 who became stranded on Sunday.
Local volunteers and holidaymakers were able to herd the surviving 42 whales back to sea.
"Last they were seen they were swimming healthily out to the ocean," regional conservation spokeswoman Lyn Williams said.
One of the cows even gave birth to a calf almost immediately after being refloated, she said.
