All 28 whales stranded on Victorian beach have died

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All 28 whales stranded on Victorian beach have died

By Lucinda McDonald and Anthony Colangelo & Liam Mannix
Updated

All 28 whales stranded on a remote beach in remote eastern Victoria are dead after the last two surviving mammals were euthanised.

A local pilot alerted authorities to the whales on Rame Head beach at Croajingolong National Park after he flew over the area at 4pm on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman at an incident control centre in Orbost handling the incident said on Wednesday afternoon that all 28 whales were dead.

The two whales that were still alive when crews returned to the scene had been euthanised in a humane way with the assistance of veterinarians, the spokeswoman said.

Of the 28 whales at Rame Head, 27 of them were pilot whales and one was a humpback.

Four were alive when rescue crews arrived via helicopter on Tuesday evening, but it was feared they would be dead by the time they returned in the morning.

When rescue crews returned to the scene on Wednesday, the tide had come back in to cover most of the whales.

"They were not in great condition," Parks Victoria incident controller Michael Turner said.

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As the beaching was a natural occurrence, the whale carcasses would be left where they are to decompose, the control centre spokeswoman said.

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Due to the remote location of the site, removal of the whales was not possible, she said.

Crews were flown in by helicopter to deal with the beaching, as it is a 4-5 hour walk to the nearest access point.

Hiking, camping and fishing are popular in the national park, which has some campgrounds that are within walking distance of beaches.

The control centre would alert people who had registered to do the park's Wilderness Coast Walk that the whale carcasses would remain there, the spokeswoman said.

“It will be very smelly but it’s so remote that very few people will experience it.”

An alert for sharks in the area is in place. Ian Parks from the Victorian Fisheries Authority said that while the carcasses were a shark attractant, “there are sharks in that area anyway”.

Mr Parks said seal colonies in the area already attract sharks to those waters.

The Victorian beaching comes days after 145 pilot whales died when they became stranded on Stewart Island off the coast of New Zealand's south, and less than a day after six whales died and six were saved in a similar incident off the country's north island.

"I've been involved when there is a single whale beached but not mass numbers like this," Mr Turner said.

The lone humpback whale was believed to be the first to arrive on the beach, before the 27 pilot whales washed up.

Pilot whales' strong social bonds make them much more susceptible to mass stranding, according to Professor Peter Harrison, the head of Southern Cross University's whale research group.

The whales use echolocation to navigate, making clicks, whistles and groans with the mouth and then listening for return signals.

But on long, flat beaches that gently slope into the surf, there are no solid objects for the sound to bounce off.

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This means whales can end up swimming toward the beach, and by the time they realise it is there they become stuck on the sand. The tide then goes out, leaving them stranded.

"Pilot whales have really strong social bonds. They tend to move together in highly structured units," Professor Harrison said.

“We think the leaders of the group might start sending out distress signals when they become beached, and that draws the rest of the social unit back in to try to help them.”

Pilot whale pods typically number between 20 and 100. The mammals can live for up to 60 years, and tend to stay within the pod ‘family’ for their entire lives.

Meanwhile, a humpback whale carcass buried at a Victorian beach will be dug up after a local backlash over fears it could attract sharks during the busy summer season.

The dead mammal washed ashore at Collendina, near Ocean Grove, on November 15 and was buried by Environment Department workers the next day.

An operation will be carried out to exhume and remove the carcass this week, following a consultation with local groups.

with AAP

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