a tragedy rarely seen on such an enormous scale on New Zealand's Shores hundreds of volunteers pour water on the survivors while waiting for the high tide this large pod of pilot whales washed ashore on Thursday night at Golden Bay Darkness forcing Rescuers to put off their efforts until Friday morning but by then around 3/4 of the Pod had already died this is the third largest mass stranding that we've recorded in our history and so it's a very large one logistically it's it's a massive undertaking uh the whale started stranding last night around about 10:00 last
night um we were notified of that and then um this morning when they went out and checked on them most of the whales were already dead of the more than 400 whales that beached themselves now just over a hundred are alive some had successfully refloated on a high tide but most were quickly stuck again as the tide ebbed and the many hands still don't make for light work the huge task is far from over oh it's amazing on there people from all over the world anyone who's within Ki um has heard about this they've just
uh um come over we brought three hitchhikers over who just said they want to come here and do whatever they could do what I called and but it's fine like it's good to be here and help it's New Zealand's largest known Wales stranding since 1985 when 450 were stranded in Oakland Wales often get stuck at Golden Bay at the top of New Zealand's South Island the shallow Waters making it difficult for Wales to return to deeper water volunteers will continue to work through the night keeping the surviving whales as comfortable as possible before another attempt
to refloat them tomorrow Virginia lerberg BBC News
