At least 400 stranded cetaceans have been spotted on a remote New Zealand beach. Volunteers are engaged in a real race against time to save them
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himAt least they have been spotted on a remote New Zealand beach 400 stranded cetaceans. Volunteers are engaged in a real race against time to save them.
In the locality of Farewell Spit about 300 of the more than 400 specimens have already died, but the volunteers do not want to give up in order to be able to save at least the hundred whales that are still alive. To be precise, these are specimens of globicephala melas, an odontocete that is part of the Delphinidae family, although the behavior is closer to that of large whales.
To their rescue hundreds of people attended, between locals and authorities. This is the worst case of its kind on South Island to date.
Scientists at the moment do not know how to give an explanation to the phenomenon, they do not know why they ended up en masse towards the shore. Sometimes it happens that the whales are old or sick and mistake their route, approaching the coast and shallow waters, but in this case the reason for the phenomenon according to experts still remains to be clarified. Someone, of course, comes up with the hypothesis of the air gun.
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One wonders, in fact, if they were perhaps by attempting suicide consciously, deciding of his own free will to head towards the shore to escape something ...
The alarm had already been raised on Thursday night but the rescue operations could only begin on Friday morning, as it was too dangerous to intervene in the dark, as the local press pointed out.
Project Jonah, an animal rescue association in New Zealand, counted a total of 416 specimens stranded. Experts are taking care of the animals still alive, trying to keep them in the right conditions.
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Volunteers present on site formed one human chain to protect them. The situation from the beginning unfortunately appeared desperate because by the time the experts and volunteers arrived on the spot, many whales had unfortunately already lost their lives.
According to Project Jonah every year in New Zealand at least 300 specimens of dolphins and whales they end up stranded and for this reason it is necessary to better understand the reasons for the phenomenon.
Many times similar episodes have occurred in the Farewell Spit area, perhaps because the shallow waters manage to confuse the whales and make them unable to reorient themselves to reach deeper waters.
It seems that this place is a trap, because in 2015 another 200 animals were stranded right here.
Here is a video showing it the commitment of volunteers to save whales in New Zealand.
Marta Albè
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