Over 120 whales dead in separate strandings

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Hundreds of people helped rescue the stranded whales in Colville Bay on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Locals helped rescue the stranded whales in Colville Bay on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Hundreds of people helped rescue the stranded whales in Colville Bay on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Hundreds of people helped rescue the stranded whales in Colville Bay on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Around 22 of the whales stranded in Colville Bay on the Coromandel Peninsula died.

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More than 120 whales died over 48 hours in two separate beachings, the Department of Conservation says.

More than 20 pilot whales will be buried by Coromandel Maori today after dying when they became stranded yesterday, while at Farewell Spit more than 100 whales died after becoming stranded on Saturday.

DOC Golden Bay biodiversity programme manager Hans Stoffregen yesterday told The Southland Times a pod of 105 long-finned pilot whales, calves and adults were found beached at the eastern tip of the spit on Boxing Day. None of them survived. The whales were discovered by a tourist plane pilot and reported to Nelson air traffic control, which contacted DOC.

Only 30 were alive and all of the adults were dead, he said. "They were in bad shape. By the time we got there two-thirds of them had already died. We had to euthanise the rest."

The stranding site was at Bush End Point, near the lighthouse.

The whales had been there for a couple of tides and had been out of the water for a long time. "It has been quite hot and they were very distressed. You could see the pain and suffering in their eyes."

Four DOC staff were called to the site and shot the surviving whales, Mr Stoffregen said. "It was horrible but nothing could have been done to save them. It was the most humane thing to do."

Because the site was in a natural reserve, the whale carcasses were left where they stranded, to decompose, Mr Stoffregen said.

Elsewhere, frantic rescuers sent about 40 whales beached north of Coromandel back out to sea yesterday afternoon, but another 20 from the stranded pod have died.

Hundreds of locals, holidaymakers and Conservation Department staff worked for hours to keep the pilot whales hydrated after 63 beached at Colville Beach about 5am yesterday.

Groups of volunteers were assigned to tend to individual whales. Deanna Pandy and five family members worked for about four hours to save their whale before it died, One News reported.

The whales may have stranded if one of them was sick, or if their sonar got mixed up, DOC worker Steve Bolten said. He hoped an autopsy on one of the dead whales would give further insight into the cause.

The whales were being monitored by DOC staff last night because of concern that they might beach again.

- with NZPA

- © Fairfax NZ News