New Zealand volunteers refloat 28 whales in rescue effort
23 February, 2021
Volunteers in New Zealand were optimistic they could save the 28 whales that remain from a good mass-stranding after refloating them Tuesday for the next time in two days.
A pod of 49 long-finned pilot whales was initially found stranded early Mon on Farewell Spit, a remote control shore on the South Island. Twenty-one of the whales have since died.
Volunteers first were able to refloat the whales on Mon evening's superior tide. But sometime over night, the whales beached themselves once again. Therefore the volunteers refloated them once again on Tuesday.
Louisa Hawkes, a spokesperson for nonprofit whale rescue group Project Jonah, said the whales had moved into deeper ocean than on the primary attempt, giving them more hope.
“They've gone much further out than yesterday,” she said. “We're cautiously optimistic they won’t keep coming back.”
She said it's rather common for pilot whales to restrand themselves a few times before swimming away.
Up to 200 volunteers helped keep carefully the whales healthy and calm while these were beached.
With guidance from Project Jonah and Department of Conservation rangers, the volunteers drenched the whales with buckets of water and kept them upright to guarantee the creatures didn’t put an excessive amount of pressure on their fins.
After refloating the whales, the volunteers after that formed human chains in the water to try to end them swimming back to shore.
Hawkes said that on Tuesday they used a great inflatable pontoon to transport one whale out into deeper ocean in the expectations it would call to it has the pod mates to check out. Once the whales possessed swum out just a little ways, she said, boats substituted humans in forming a barrier to the shore.
“It has been an enormous community effort,” she said.
The stranded whales were first noticed by a tour operator early Monday within an area that is the website of previous mass strandings.
Sometimes described as a good whale trap, Farewell Spit's long coastline and gently sloping beaches seem to be to make it difficult for whales to navigate away from after they get close.
There will vary theories as to the reasons whales strand themselves, from chasing prey too much inshore to trying to safeguard a sick person in the group or escaping a predator.
Four years ago, more than 650 pilot whales beached themselves on Farewell Spit on two separate mass strandings. A lot more than 350 died while about 300 were saved.
Pilot whales are actually relatively small but may grow to over 6 meters (20 feet).
Source: japantoday.com
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