Whales restrand despite huge volunteer effort

24 January 2012
Despite the efforts of our volunteers at Farewell Spit, 40 whales refloated on today's high tide have restranded this afternoon.

This is very sad news, particularly for our marine mammal medics who worked since first light to keep the whales and alive and get them back in the water.

However, true to form, these dedicated people are now quite literally digging deep to restart emergency first aid for the exhausted animals.

Project Jonah CEO, Kimberly Muncaster, who is at the stranding site, says the tide dropped very quickly and although there was a huge effort from volunteers to stop the animals restranding, they grounded again.

“We’ll be desperately trying to keep them alive until nightfall and we hope they may refloat themselves at high tide around 11.30pm,” Kimberly says.

“When we refloated the whales we knew there was every chance they could end up back on the beach. We hoped it wouldn’t be the case but sadly these animals are finding it very hard to stabilise themselves and get back out to safe waters.”

Tragic as it may seem, this kind of restranding is not unusual for Golden Bay, with its fast receding and incoming tides. Although the animals were refloated they didn’t move quickly enough in the right direction and got caught on the sand as many have before them.

On a happier note, the pod of about 17 whales that refloated themselves overnight continue to make their way out of the bay and were last reported to be swimming strongly with about 28 metres of water beneath them.

Alongside the Department of Conservation, over 50 Project Jonah volunteers came to the aid of 100 whales that stranded yesterday.

Many spent the night camped out in the car park at Farewell Spit and were ready to continue the rescue operation at first light this morning.

Well equipped, trained volunteers came from as far as Invercargill and Australia to help.

“Our volunteers have been amazing," Kimberly says. "The conditions haven’t been easy, it’s very hot and saving whales can be really hard work, especially when there are so many of them."