Australian wildlife rescuers were using jetskis and small boats today to try to save nearly 200 pilot whales and a small pod of dolphins beached on an island between the mainland and Tasmania.
Rescuers said only 54 of the 194 whales stranded on King Island had survived, and seven dolphins were still alive. It is the fourth beaching incident near Tasmania in recent months.
Rescuers dug trenches in the sand to channel water close to the whales as volunteers doused them with water and draped wet fabric over their bodies to keep them cool.
More than 100 volunteers used stretchers to carry dolphins into the shallows, and other officials used small boats and a jetski to pull whales out to sea.
Whale strandings happen periodically in Tasmania during their migration to and from Antarctic waters, but scientists do not know why it happens. It is unusual, however, for whales and dolphins to get stranded together.
Chris Arthur, of Tasmania's parks and wildlife service, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: "It's amazing, some will some die straight away, some will survive for days," he said. "These are fairly robust animals, pilot whales – we experienced that in the past."
More than 100 King Island residents had volunteered to help the efforts.
Arthur was optimistic about their chances but expressed concern about a number of other whales just off shore. The Tasmanian newspaper the Examiner reported that the animals were caught by a very low tide.
In January, 45 sperm whales died after becoming stranded on a remote Tasmanian sandbar, even though rescuers worked for days to keep them cool and wet as they tried to move them back to the open water.
Last November, 150 long-finned pilot whales died after beaching on a rocky coastline in Tasmania.
