On this picture supplied by the Division of Pure Sources and Setting Tasmania, a lady inspects a whale after greater than 150 false killer whales have change into stranded on Feb. 19, 2025, on a distant seashore close to Arthur River in Australia’s island state of Tasmania.
AP/Division of Pure Sources and Setting Tasmania
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AP/Division of Pure Sources and Setting Tasmania
MELBOURNE, Australia — Greater than 150 false killer whales are stranded on a distant seashore on Australia’s island state of Tasmania, officers mentioned on Wednesday.
Marine consultants together with veterinarians have been on the scene close to Arthur River on Tasmania’s northwest coast, a Division of Pure Sources and Setting assertion mentioned.
Of the 157 beached whales, solely 90 appeared to nonetheless be alive, division liaison officer Brendon Clark mentioned. A couple of hours earlier, the division had mentioned 136 had survived.
The inaccessibility of the seashore, ocean circumstances and challenges to getting specialist tools to the distant space have been complicating a response.
Authorities had but to find out on Wednesday if any of the whales — which may weigh from 500 kilograms (1,100 kilos) to three metric tons (3.3 U.S. tons) — might be refloated from the uncovered surf seashore, Clark mentioned.
“To attempt to refloat the animals straight again into that surf can be difficult after which in fact that will additionally current some huge security dangers for our employees and personnel,” Clark advised reporters.
“We have got our consultants on web site now which are doing … all that they’ll to find out what methodology can be carried out to attempt to discover a appropriate and a humane response to this specific very difficult incident,” Clark added.
He mentioned the stranding was the primary by false killer whales in Tasmania in since 1974. That was a pod of greater than 160 whales that landed on a seashore close to Stanley on the northwest coast. Strandings in Tasmania are often pilot whales.
Clark declined to invest on why the newest pod might need stranded. Carcasses of lifeless whales can be examined for clues, he mentioned.
The whales have been found on Tuesday afternoon and a helicopter reconnaissance decided that there have been no different whales inside 10 kilometers (6 miles) of the stranded pod, he mentioned.
Some may have been stranded for so long as 48 hours by early Wednesday.
Arthur River native resident Jocelyn Flint mentioned her son had found the stranded whales round midnight whereas fishing for shark.
She mentioned she had gone to the scene at midnight hours of the morning and returned after daybreak however the whales have been too large to aim to refloat them.
“The water was surging proper up and so they have been thrashing. They’re simply dying, they’ve sunk down within the sand,” Flint mentioned. “I feel it is too late.”
“There are little infants. Up one finish, there’s numerous large ones. It is unhappy,” she added.
In 2022, 230 pilot whales stranded additional south on the west coast at Macquarie Harbor.
The biggest mass-stranding in Australian historical past occurred in the identical harbor in 2020 when 470 long-finned pilot whales turned caught on sandbars. A lot of the beached whales died on each events.
The explanations for the beachings are unclear. Causes may embody disorientation attributable to loud noises, sickness, previous age, damage, fleeing predators and extreme climate.
