Parks and Wildlife Service staff are rushing to the scene of Tasmania’s second mass whale stranding in as many weeks.
Mmore than 80 long-finned pilot whales have beached themselves at remote Sandy Cape, on the West Coast.
Remote Sandy Cape is famed for its large sand dunes and its proximity to the Tarkine forest, and its rugged, rocky shoreline.
UPDATE: Sadly, all the whales have died after taking a “physical beating on the rocks”.
Department of Primary Industries and Water spokesman Warwick Brennan said the long-finned pilot whales, discovered on a rocky area of coastline near Sandy Cape, died when they were forced into rocks.
Mr Brennan said 30 others were saved from the same fate when one whale began vocally socialising with a pod offshore and was taken further up the beach in an effort to stop those whales from coming in.
They moved on after it died.
UPDATE December 1: On the ground body count finds initial estimate from air of 80 stranded way too low. Latest count is more than 150.
[Photography: David Reilly, ABC]
Rescuers have shifted 12 stranded pilot whales to a different beach in north-west Tasmania in an attempt to get them back to sea.
The 12 surviving long-finned whales were part of a maternal pod of 65 mothers and calves which was discovered yesterday stranded at Anthony’s Beach.
Fifty-three of the whales died when the pod became beached.
UPDATE: Eleven whales have been returned to the open ocean.
Rescuers have been working since early yesterday to save the long-finned pilot whales, the only survivors from a pod of 65 that became beached near Stanley.
It is hoped the group will be able to rejoin another migratory pod.
Parks and Wildlife Services manager Chris Arthur says 12 whales, up to three metres long, were transported 17 kilometres along the Bass Highway on trucks equipped for the purpose to deep water at Godfreys Beach.
Shares in Tasmanian timber company Gunns have plunged more than 15 per cent in early trade today despite a general rise in the stock market. This morning the company’s shares were down 17 cents to just 88 cents.
Yesterday former Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon conceded Gunns’ proposed $2 billion pulp mill appears to have been shelved. Mr Lennon told a parliamentary committee the project “may not be alive”.
UPDATE: November 21, they’re down to 75 cents.
UPDATE: November 24, now 64 cents …
