Fri 18 March 2022:
More than two dozen whales died in a mass stranding at Farewell Spit, a remote South Island beach known as a whale death trap, according to New Zealand’s Department of Conservation on Friday.
Late Thursday, wildlife rangers discovered 34 long-finned pilot whales on the shore, but 29 of them were already dead. Pilot whales are the most frequent whale species in New Zealand seas, measuring up to 6 meters in length. They are particularly vulnerable to major strandings.
At high tide on Friday, five of the whales were refloated. However, another beached whale and a dead whale were discovered a short distance apart in Triangle Flat on Farewell Spit. It was unclear whether or not these were the whales that had been refloated a few hours earlier, according to the Department of Conservation.
Farewell Spit is a sand spit that juts out into the sea and stretches for 26 kilometers (about 16 miles). Over the last 15 years, the famed beach has experienced more than ten whale strandings, the greatest of which occurred in February 2017, when around 700 whales were beached. Nearly 250 people died.
It’s still unclear why whales die so frequently on the beach.
“The cause of this stranding is not known, but Golden Bay is a high stranding area with Farewell Spit hooking around the northern entrance into the bay and forming extensive, many kilometers wide, intertidal sand flats,” the department said.
The spit, according to common belief, produces a shallow seabed in the bay, perhaps interfering with the whales’ sonar navigation systems.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES | Photo: Department of Conservation (Facebook)
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