New Zealand rescuers form human chain to help stranded whales

Volunteers try to guide some of the stranded pilot whales still alive back out to sea on Saturday. (Source: REUTERS)

(Source: REUTERS)

German visitor Lea Stubbe rubs water on a pilot whale that beached itself at the remote Farewell Spit on the tip of the South Island of New Zealand on Friday. (Source: New Zealand Herald via AP)

Although about 100 whales stranded overnight were floated just after dawn, a fifth of that number beached themselves again in the afternoon. “These whales are not in good condition and will be euthanised to relieve their suffering,” the department of conservation said in its statement.

Volunteers walk between some of the hundreds of stranded pilot whales. (Source: REUTERS)

A dead pilot whale lies on a sandbank (Source: REUTERS)

Since a conservation worker spotted the whales washed ashore on Thursday evening, rescuers have spent two days pouring water over the beached whales to try and keep them cool, while waiting to catch high tides to carry them out to sea again. School children have sung to soothe the distressed animals.

Volunteers pour water over beached whales at the remote Farewell Spit on the tip of the South Island of New Zealand. (Source: New Zealand Herald via AP)

Volunteers attend to some of the hundreds of stranded pilot whales still alive. (Source: REUTERS)

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 precise cause was not known, though beached whales are not uncommon at Golden Bay, whose murky low-lying waters Project Jonah says can confuse the marine mammals’ sonar, leaving them vulnerable to stranding when the tide ebbs. Pilot whales are not listed as endangered, but little is known about their population in New Zealand waters.