Surviving whales swim to sea
INVERCARGILL, New Zealand (AP) — A pod of 45 pilot whales was swimming out into open sea late Friday, giving hope to rescuers who spent a frantic day shepherding the whales away from a beach where 22 others had gotten stranded and died.
The surviving whales were swimming six miles from Maori Beach on Friday night, conservation officials said. They planned a dawn flight Saturday to check beaches and bays in case the survivors turn around during the night.
The saga on remote Stewart Island began Thursday, when dozens of conservationists and volunteers rushed to Maori Beach after two British walkers reported a mass stranding of whales.
The army of rescuers worked for 30 hours in rain, hail and cold water to comfort and refloat the beached whales. At high tide late Friday morning they were able to help the mammals find their way back into the deeper water. They then began shepherding the whales away from the beach, said Greg Lind of the Department of Conservation.
“We put a lot of pressure on the pod to get it away from the beach. We herded them for more than six hours, and at times they were agitated and distressed,” he said.
Only in the late afternoon did the whales’ behavior change.
“They moved northwest up the coastline to a point well clear of the beaches, so we let them go,” Lind said.
The whales were continuing to head away from the stranding site at nightfall.
The 22 carcasses on the beach, each of which weighed about a ton, would be left to rot away, Lind said. The remote location made it impossible to bury or otherwise dispose of the dead whales.
Conservation staff said there was no history of whales beaching themselves on Maori Beach. Two years ago, 288 whales died after beaching themselves at isolated Doughboy Bay on Stewart Island’s southeast coast.
It’s not clear why whales beach themselves, but mass beachings occur every year.
