Ad
related to: pilot whale stranding ruakaka sea salt company shop
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Nearly 300 pilot whales ran aground on Great Barrier Island, killing about one-quarter of them. Local residents, who had received rescue lectures after a similar incident the previous year, helped rescue more than 200 whales at high tide. [36] Great Barrier Island, New Zealand: 294 245 49+ 1935 Around 300 pilot whales were stranded at Stanley ...
A dramatic operation to save the lives of more than 100 pilot whales ended in partial success on Thursday after wildlife officials managed to return most of the stranded animals to sea.
New Zealand’s Indigenous people consider whales a taonga — a sacred treasure — of cultural significance. New Zealand has recorded more than 5,000 whale strandings since 1840. The largest pilot whale stranding was of an estimated 1,000 whales at the Chatham Islands in 1918, according to the Department of Conservation.
Pilot whales are cetaceans belonging to the genus Globicephala. The two extant species are the long-finned pilot whale (G. melas) and the short-finned pilot whale (G. macrorhynchus). The two are not readily distinguishable at sea, and analysis of the skulls is the best way to distinguish between the species.
The long-finned pilot whale has traditionally been hunted by "driving", which involves many hunters and boats gathering in a semicircle behind a pod of whales close to shore, and slowly driving them towards a bay, where they become stranded and are then slaughtered. This practice was common in both the 19th and 20th centuries.
A rescue operation is underway to save any surviving pilot whales among the 500 or so stranded along the coast of the Australian island of Tasmania.
A pod of more than 50 pilot whales has died after a mass stranding on a northwestern Scottish island, according to a marine charity on the ground.
Though mass strandings of this species are most common in New Zealand, pilot whales have beached themselves in many other countries in places such as northern Europe, the Atlantic coast of North America, South America, and southern parts of Africa. Over 600 pilot whales were involved in a stranding at Farewell Spit, New Zealand on February 9, 2017.