The whale graveyard: Around 80 are stranded in mass beaching

Daily Mail, By DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 23rd September 2010

Nearly 60 pilot whales - including a calf - died when a pod of 80 became stranded on a remote beach in northern New Zealand, despite a desperate rescue attempt to save them.

Only 24 animals survived a stormy first night ashore following the second mass beaching this month, officials said.

Yesterday rescuers struggled to move survivors above the tide-line. They spent the night at Spirits Bay trying to keep the whales cool and damp as large waves and strong winds lashed the beach.

Beached: Dozens of pilot whales died after they were stranded
on a remote beach in northern New Zealand

Stranded: Only 24 creatures survived a stormy first night ashore
after the second mass beaching this month, officials said

'As of this morning, there have been 24 live animals moved out of the tide up onto the beach out of harms' way,' Department of Conservation spokeswoman Caroline Smith said.

'The weather is terrible up there. We have 20 knot winds and 1.5 to 2m (5ft - 7ft) swells, so it is not possible to refloat them at Spirits Bay.'

Officials planned to use big nets to lift the creatures - spread out over a three-mile stretch - onto the back of trucks and move them to more sheltered Rarawa Beach, about an hour south, where they will be refloated.

Teacher Te Aroha Wihapi took a group of students to help cover the whales with wet sheets.

'It was quite traumatic for some of the younger ones, she said. 'Two of them wanted to hug one of the whales because they saw its eye was weeping.'

Rescue efforts: crews attempt to save the pilot whales stranded on an
isolated beach at the top of New Zealand's North Island

Team effort: Volunteer Kate Malcolm from Tutukaka, New Zealand,
comforts a whale after it was moved to a nearby stream to rest

Department of Conservation area manager Jonathan Maxwell said at least 25 of the animals were already dead when officials first arrived at Spirits Bay.

Another 15 had died by nightfall and 50 more were spotted just offshore, some of which later beached.

Some of the weakest and most stressed animals had to be put down.

'Pilot whales have very strong social bonds and they try to help each other, so more keep getting stuck,' said Mark Simpson, of marine mammal protection charity Project Jonah.

In mid-August, 58 pilot whales became stranded at nearby Karikari Beach.

Survivors: Whales are transported from the beach to a nearby
stream as rescuers decide how to refloat them

Race against time: Yesterday rescuers struggled to move survivors
above the tide-line. They spent the night at Spirits Bay trying to
keep the 80 creatures cool and damp

Despite hundreds of helpers fighting to save them, only nine were eventually floated off the beach and returned to sea.

A pod of 101 pilot whales were beached in the same place in 2007.

New Zealand has one of the world's highest rates of whale strandings, mainly during their migrations to and from Antarctic waters - one of these begins in September.

Since 1840, the Department of Conservation has recorded more than 5,000 strandings of whales and dolphins around the New Zealand coast.

Scientists have not been able to determine why whales become stranded.