150 stranded whales die in Australia
A group of 150 whales that became stranded on a remote coastline in southern Australia were battered to death on rocks before rescuers could save them.
Officials from Tasmania state’s Parks and Wildlife Service rushed Sunday in four-wheel-drive vehicles to the remote site at Sandy Cape after the long-finned pilot whales were spotted by air a day earlier.
A group of 150 whales that became stranded on a remote coastline in southern Australia were battered to death on rocks before rescuers could save them.
Officials from Tasmania state’s Parks and Wildlife Service rushed Sunday in four-wheel-drive vehicles to the remote site at Sandy Cape after the long-finned pilot whales were spotted by air a day earlier.
A helicopter crew arriving late Saturday found about a dozen of the whales injured but alive, said Warwick Brennan, a spokesman for the service.
Other officials and volunteers arrived by four-wheel-drive vehicle on Sunday and worked frantically to save those remaining, but the whales died, Brennan said.
The coastline is strewn with reefs and jagged rocks, making it much more dangerous for the stranded whales than if they had landed at a sandy beach, said Rosemary Gales, another wildlife service official.
