150 whales dead in Tasmania stranding

1 Dec 2008, 10:13 am   -   Source: AAP
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Authorities now say 150 whales perished in the mass stranding off Tasmania's west coast over the weekend - almost double the original tally.

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Authorities now say 150 whales perished in the mass stranding off Tasmania's west coast over the weekend - almost double the original tally.

The Department of Primary Industries and Water says the original number of about 80 long-finned pilot whales rose to 150 after a body count on Sunday.

But department spokesman Warwick Brennan said a pod of around 30 which milling offshore was saved from stranding and shepherded out to sea by boat.

The stranded whales were discovered on a rocky area of coastline near Sandy Cape on Saturday.
 
Members of the local community and about six department staff worked in vain to save them but the whales had been badly injured by the rocks.

Mr Brennan on Sunday said the whales' chances of survival in that sort of environment were much less than if they had come ashore on a sandy area.

With one of the whales calling to the offshore pod, it was decided to move the mammal further up the beach and out of range.
 
"Our first priority was to try to stop other animals from stranding so we decided to move the animal still calling onshore further up the beach and away from the pod to see if that made any difference," Mr Brennan said.


"Unfortunately, that whale died but what happened then was those 30 whales milling around seemed more willing to move on and with a  boat in the water we managed to shepherd them out of the bay.

"Hopefully, those animals now will move on." He said that because the whales were in a remote area it was likely their carcasses would be left to break down rather than
buried.

Last week, 65 long-finned pilot whales stranded at Anthony's Beach on Tasmania's north-west coast.
 
Eleven of those whales were rescued and returned to sea. "We put some transmitters on those surviving animals and at last report they were in the Bass Strait and moving well," Mr Brennan said.
 
"So, we do know that animals that are stranded and rescued do survive - the 11 that were rescued have formed a pod and seem to be doing well."

He said whale strandings in Tasmania were becoming more common.

"We go through periods where we are dealing with strandings every 12 days. That runs from a single animal stranding to these mass strandings and, at this time of year, it seems to be especially busy."
 
Mr Brennan said one reason for the strandings could be the navigational skills of the deep water whales could go awry if they chase prey into more shallow waters.

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