A few days ago, New Zealand residents woke up to a sad, surprising sight. Over four hundred pilot whales stranded themselves on a beach, but about three hundred of them died before rescuers could save them.
“Four hundred volunteers along with staff from DOC and Project Johan, a non-profit conservation group, spent the day trying to keep the surviving whales comfortable,” wrote Dylan Heyden. “Forming a human chain during the refloat attempt at high tide to deter whales from re-stranding themselves. Working with the animals at night, though, is not allowed due to safety concerns.”
The pilot whales beached on Farewell Spit in Golden Bay on the South Island. Soon after the whales were spotted, the New Zealand Department of Conservation attempted a refloat–essentially towing the whales out to sea and hoping they swim back out to sea–which was only partially successful. By the afternoon, many of the whales had re-beached themselves.
“It is one of the saddest things I have seen,” Peter Wiles, one of the first volunteers to reach Farewell Spit, told Fairfax New Zealand. “That many sentient creatures just wasted on the beach.”
According to reports, part of the reason the rescue attempt was so difficult was because they whales “are social animals and want to remain close to their pod, even if most of them are now dead.”
Many locals ditched work and school to come and help out, bringing buckets, towels, and blankets to keep the remaining live whales wet and cool. As of now, volunteers are still trying to save the few remaining whales, keeping them as healthy as possible until Saturday afternoon, when the tide is high again.
