Meteorologia

  • 18 MAIO 2024
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26 of 100+ whales die in mass stranding in Australia

Most animals will have to be euthanized, but those responsible will still try to take the animals to deeper waters.

26 of 100+ whales die in mass stranding in Australia
Notícias ao Minuto

15:22 - 25/04/24 por Notícias ao Minuto com Lusa

Mundo Austrália

The Department of Parks and Wildlife in Western Australia announced on Thursday that at least 26 of the pilot whales that beached themselves on a remote beach have died.

International publications reported that up to 160 of the animals beached themselves – although initial reports suggested there were between 50 and 100 pilot whales.

“A team of experienced staff including operations officers, scientists and veterinarians are on site or en route,” officials said.

Wildlife officers will attempt to refloat some of the pilot whales that are still alive into deeper waters.

But the department said in most mass stranding cases “the majority are euthanised as the most humane outcome”.

The incident is the third mass stranding of pilot whales in Australia and New Zealand in recent years.

Almost 100 pilot whales died or were euthanised in September last year after a two-day rescue effort, after they became stranded on Cheynes Beach, near the former whaling station of Albany, 355 kilometres south-east of Dunsborough.

In 1918, about 1000 pilot whales stranded on the remote Chatham Islands, about 800 kilometres off the south-east coast of New Zealand.

Australia’s worst stranding was in 2020, when about 470 long-finned pilot whales beached themselves on a remote part of Tasmania’s west coast, with only about 100 refloated and returned to sea.

Two years later most of the 230 long-finned pilot whales that stranded themselves on the same beach died.

Read Also: Dozens of pilot whales stranded on the west coast of Australia (Portuguese version)

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