Global General
More than 120 whales die in strandings in New Zealand
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-28 09:26
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WELLINGTON: More than 120 whales died over 48 hours in two separate beachings in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation said on Monday.
More than 20 pilot whales will be buried by Coromandel Maori on Monday after dying when they became stranded on Sunday.
Sixty-three whales, mostly cows with calves, beached themselves at Colville Bay, north of Coromandel township in North Island.
The 3-4 meter whales were seen by fishermen struggling about 300 meters offshore around 6 a.m. and they called emergency services.
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DOC spokeswoman for the area, Lyn Williams, said none of those whales had returned to the beach overnight.
One of the cows even gave birth to a calf almost immediately after being refloated, she said.
DOC senior adviser Mike Donoghue said the bay was a typical place for whales to become disoriented.
Meanwhile, 105 long-finned pilot whales died at Farewell Spit at the top of the South Island on Saturday.
DOC Golden Bay biodiversity program manager Hans Stoffregen told The Southland Times none of the stranded pod survived.
They were discovered by a tourist plane pilot and reported to Nelson air traffic control, which contacted DOC.
Only 30 were alive when DOC arrived and all of the adults were dead, he said.
The whales had been there for a couple of tides and had been out of the water for a long time.
Because the site was in a natural reserve, the whale carcasses were left where they stranded, to decompose, Stoffregen said.
Beached whales will be buried on Monday.
