Tasmania: Beached Whales And Dolphins Rescued (VIDEO)

SYDNEY - Rescuers used jet skis, backhoes and human muscle to save dozens of whales and dolphins stranded on a beach in southern Australia on Monday, officials and news reports said.

The 194 pilot whales and half a dozen bottlenose dolphins became stranded on Naracoopa Beach on Tasmania state's King Island on Sunday evening -- the fourth beaching incident in recent months in Tasmania.

Strandings happen periodically in Tasmania as whales pass by 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, said 54 whales and seven dolphins were still alive when the rescue effort began. By late Monday, 48 animals had been returned to the sea by officials and more than 100 King Island residents who had volunteered to help.

Backhoes dug trenches in the sand that allowed water to get close to the whales, as volunteers doused them with water and draped wet fabric over them to keep them cool.

Groups of volunteers used stretchers to lug dolphins into the shallows, and other officials used small boats and a jet ski to pull whales out to sea.

Rescuers were hopeful they would stay away from the shore.

"It's too early to say yet but it's been a very, very positive day," Shelley Davison, a Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

It was not clear why the animals had beached on the island, halfway between Tasmania and mainland Australia. The Examiner, a Tasmanian newspaper, 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. A week earlier, rescuers saved 11 pilot whales among a pod of 60 that had beached on the island state.

Comments

[StopGlobalWarmingBeVegan]

It's all the pollution in the water, they can't stand their dirty environment.

[rockyersocksoff]

Heck, I wouldn't call that a tragedy, I'd call it a seafood delivery.

Bring the wasabi!

[NCRDIBULL]

Hey , if Global warming wasn't the hoax it is , the ocean levels would have been two high for them to have beached

[Brainoverbraun]

Ignorance is bliss - you must be very happy!

[Furby]

That right Ncrdibull, if the ocean levels were higher they would have been caught up in traffic, dune grass and palm branches when they tried to beach :) Are you serious or just kidding? It's hard to tell.

[StopCensoringMe]

Reminds me of the famous photograph of the Buddhist monk setting himself afire during the Vietnam conflict. Sometimes, a peace-loving species can find no louder voice for its fellow sufferers than to sacrifice one's own life in an effort to draw attention to the problem. Dramatic? Yes. Effective? We don't know yet. But, it seems to me that these whales and dolphins are trying to tell us to leave them alone to live in their own neighborhoods in peace and without pollution or warming. Looks to me like a none-too-ironic example of problems in all parts of our planet.