[ad_1]
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian wildlife officials began disposing of hundreds of dead pilot whales on Saturday after concluding that there was no longer any hope of rescuing them.
On Australia’s largest whale beach, 470 whales were first spotted on a wide sandbar during an aerial survey of rugged Macquarie Harbor in Tasmania on Monday.
After days of difficult and dangerous rescue attempts, Australia said it rescued 108 whales, and the rest are now believed to have died.
Rob Buck, Incident Controller and Manager of the Parks and Wildlife Service, said 15 whales have already been removed at sea, but operations to remove the roughly 350 remaining mammals were expected to take at least several days.
“Collection and disposal is carried out with the help of aquaculture companies whose equipment and port expertise is essential for a timely and effective outcome,” Buck said in an emailed statement.
The bodies of the dead whales were separated into groups and enclosed with water pumps to try to keep them in one place and isolated from sharks and other predators.
Most of the released whales, a gregarious species that lives in deep waters, were expected to “regroup” and recover from the traumatic event, authorities said.
(Reporting by Colin Packham; Edited by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
[ad_2]
