Tasmania pilot whales: nearly 400 die in Australia’s worst stranding

About 380 whales have died in what is suspected to be Australia’s largest recorded stranding, authorities say.

Since Monday, hundreds of long-finned pilot whales have been found stranded off the west coast of Tasmania.

Rescuers had managed to save 50 by late Wednesday, and were trying to help the estimated 30 remaining whales.

Tasmanian government officials said the rescue effort will continue “as long as there are live animals.”

“While they are still alive and in the water, there is still hope for them, but as time goes on they become more fatigued,” said Nik Deka of Tasmania’s Department of Primary Industries.

He added that the focus would now also shift to removing the hundreds of corpses scattered along the coast. A clean-up plan is still being worked out: in the past, bodies were buried on the shore or washed out to sea.

It is not fully understood why the whales were stranded. The species is known to be prone to stranding.

The stranding, one of the largest ever recorded globally, dwarfs a previous national record of 320 set in Western Australia in 1996.

The whales were largely washed out of the sand in the waters around an area called Macquarie Heads.

The first rescuers on Monday counted about 270 whales, but a helicopter Tuesday spotted another 200 dead whales nearby.

Authorities said the second group may have arrived with the tide, but it was believed to be part of the same herd.

A team of about 60 people have used slings and other equipment to help lift the whales from the sandbars so that they are completely submerged in the water.

Once the whales “float back,” they are guided back into deeper waters.

Rescuers said they had escorted 50 whales back to sea, which they called a “success”.

Rescue efforts were hampered by a strong tide that brought some released whales to shore, they added.

Whale experts said the surviving animals would be exhausted and weak. Pilot whales can grow up to 7 m (22 ft) long and weigh up to three tons.

Without the buoyancy of the water, the whales would also be slowly crushed under the weight of their bodies, said Professor Peter Harrison of the University of Southern Cross Whale Research Group.

Scientists say the reason is often unknown, but they have a variety of theories, including whales being drawn to shore by fish and becoming disoriented.

Pilot whales, in particular, are known to get stranded in groups because they travel in large, close-knit communities that depend on constant communication.

Investigators say it is possible that one lead individual may have mistakenly led the entire group to shore.

These groups are also believed to be susceptible around gently sloping beaches over a wide area, because their sonar pulses may not detect the shoreline in shallow water.

More than 80% of Australian whale strandings take place in Tasmania, and experts say Macquarie Heads is a known hotspot.

Tasmania’s previous largest stranding was in 1935 with 294 pilot whales. Its last mass stranding was in 2009 and involved about 200 pilot whales.