A pod of more than 400 whales have stranded overnight on Farewell Spit. Farewell Spit (Tuhuroa) is a narrow sand spit at the northern end of the Golden Bay, South Island of New Zealand.
Sadly, hundreds of the whales have already died.
Dozens of volunteers are attempting to save the surviving whales. Whales can survive for several days out of the water as long as they are kept cool and wet.
The Department of Conservation (DOC) said it was the biggest whale stranding the department had ever seen and put out an urgent call earlier this morning for volunteers to help staff keep the remaining whales cool until high tide at 10.30am.
DOC and whale charity, Project Jonah, should know by lunchtime if the whales had been refloated successfully, or if more volunteers were needed for a second attempt.
It was not clear why the whales had stranded, but Golden Bay was prone to mass strandings. The bay was very shallow and once whales got in too close to shore they could find it very difficult to head back out.
15 Responses
this is so sad they need to bild a wall so they dont come to shore
how sad
they should try and roll them upwards and then dig a hole underneath them to catch the water and lead them back in.
That is so so sad. 🙁
This is so sad I love whales I can’t believe this happend?
How awful. I am really fond of animals so that makes me sad
They should try and add very heavy wires as a barricade. Just make sure the barricade will be placed somewhere where whales can swim underneath it.
thats so sad i love animals
This is very sad????
sad news
Sad to see that so many whales have died…
i love animals so it makes me sad to see this
Pretty Sad these over 400 Pilot whales would have needed about 4000 people to help all of these whales at once. But the bad thing is that most of them have already died but the thing that is bugging me is that how did over 400 Pilot whales get stranded on one beach the same time as each other whale. __________INTERESTING__________
this news is so sad I can’t believe this happened I hope they don’t need a second attempt and I wonder if there were anyone that volunteered it is so sad that so many died I just hope they make it into the open ocean keep up the good work guys good luck keep going no matter what people say
this is so sad we need to get patrol people to make sure the whales do not come to close and if the whales do get to close then they will guide them back out to see