Around 250 pilot whales have died on a beach on New Zealand’s Chatham Island in the South Pacific. The pilot whales, which belong to the dolphin family, were stranded yesterday in the north-west of the island, the nature conservation authority announced today. The emergency services would not actively drive the whales into the water because of the “danger of a shark attack for both people and the whales themselves”.
A trained team eventually euthanized the surviving whales to prevent further suffering, the agency said. “All the stranded pilot whales have now died and their bodies are left to decompose naturally,” it said.
Similar case in Australia two weeks ago
Pilot whales can grow up to six meters long. They are known to be very sociable and may therefore follow fellow animals who are in danger. Mass strandings like this are not uncommon in the Chatham Islands archipelago, several hundred kilometers east of New Zealand.
In Australia, almost 200 whales perished on a remote beach in the state of Tasmania about two weeks ago. The authorities there managed to guide 44 of the marine mammals back into the water.