Whales have once again lost their way on their migration route in the South Pacific and have perished off a remote island off New Zealand. WWF had warned of dangers to whales in February.
Whales often get lost on the beaches of New Zealand. The picture shows a whale stranded on the south coast in February.
(dpa/sev.) Almost 240 pilot whales have died after being stranded on a remote New Zealand island. The marine mammals got lost on Pitt Island in the South Pacific more than 800 kilometers off the east coast of New Zealand on Monday, the country’s conservation authority said on Wednesday. Around 240 pilot whales died on neighboring Chatham Island on Saturday.
Some of the whales were dead when they arrived, but the rest needed to be euthanized to minimize suffering, said Dave Lundquist, an adviser to the agency. In the region, rescuers would not actively return the marine mammals to the water “because of the risk of shark attacks on humans and the whales themselves, so euthanasia was the most humane solution.” Pitt Island is New Zealand’s most remote inhabited island, with limited communications and difficult logistics, according to the agency.
Return to sea not always possible
According to the whale protection organization Project Jonah, with a total of almost 480 dead whales within a few days, these were major strandings in the Pacific state. “At Farewell Spit (on the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island) there are large mass strandings, but there are an average of 70 to 80 whales.” The helpers would try to save the animals if this was possible.
In New Zealand it happens again and again that whales get lost on beaches. Such events are also not uncommon on the Chatham Islands, which includes Pitt Island. In 1918 more than 1000 animals are said to have died in a single stranding.
In February, the environmental organization WWF warned of the dangers to whales along their migration routes in a report. Plastic waste, fishing and shipping are increasingly troubling whales as they migrate through the oceans. With satellite data from over 800 whales from the past 30 years, the environmentalists had identified the sometimes long routes. Large species such as blue whales, which travel long distances, are particularly affected. The WWF had demanded that the “blue corridors” of the animals urgently needed better protection to prevent endangered species from becoming extinct.