On February 9th, 2017, rescuers flocked to a New Zealand beach after hundreds of whales were found stranded. This mass stranding is thought to be the largest mass stranding in decades with 416 pilot whales beached. As the morning went on the DOC plead for locals to drop work and school to help the whales by bringing towels, buckets, and sheets to keep them cool and wet. High tide came at 10:30am and the remaining whales that were alive were relocated to their ocean home but early afternoon 90 of the whales ended up back on the shore.
It is very common for masses of whales to beach themselves as they are social beings and never leave their pods too far behind but most are now dead. New Zealand has had 3 mass strandings in its history. An astounding 1,866 have sadly died because of these mass strandings. NZ has one of the highest stranding totals in the world with around 300 whales and dolphins beaching themselves in a year, every year. There is no known cause as to why this issue is so overwhelming and prevalent in this area but it is thought to be most injured, sick or dying whales that end up on the beaches.
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