Emotions run high as New Zealand’s mass whale beaching ends, with about 300 survivors swimming away
The news came as a relief for the hundreds of exhausted volunteers, who had spent three days comforting the stranded animals and keeping them cool while waiting to refloat them
Whale rescuers were cautiously optimistic Sunday that the current wave of mass beachings in New Zealand was over, after hundreds of the creatures died after being stranded ashore.
The crisis began early Friday when a pod of 416 whales were found stranded on the 26km Farewell Spit, with hundreds more following them over the weekend.
The shallow, sweeping spit is believed to interfere with the whales’ navigation systems and is a regular scene of mass strandings.
The stranding might be winding down but the emotions are still quite close to the surface. There have been some really hard moments
As low tide approached early on Sunday evening, about 300 pilot whales were heading out of Golden Bay in the northwest of the South Island and swimming towards the deep-water safety of Cook Strait.
“It’s good news. The pod is swimming well away,” Department of Conservation regional conservation manager Andrew Lamason said.
“They’re the exact words,” he added, when asked if he was cautiously optimistic the crisis was over. “We’ve pulled our boats out of the water.”
The news came as a relief for the hundreds of exhausted volunteers, who had spent three days comforting the stranded animals and keeping them cool while waiting to refloat them on the high tide.
Late Saturday afternoon, when rescuers believed the situation to be under control, about 240 whales moved around a small flotilla of boats and a human chain of rescuers standing in the water trying to herd them away.