Tragedy almost occurred in New Zealand on Monday, when over 40 pilot whales (Globicephala melas) beached at the same time on Ruakākā beach, in the north of the country. Under normal conditions, the animals would not have stood a chance. But the prompt response of hundreds of residents and volunteers enabled an extraordinary rescue: after hours of incessant work, most of the pod was returned to the water safe and sound, leaving only four victims on the sands of the beach.
The rescue
In the end, three adults and one cub failed to make it. All the other animals, however, returned safely to swim in the ocean, after being cared for for hours waiting for the tide to facilitate the rescue operations. And thanks to the collaboration of the huge crowd of passers-by and activists who lined up in the water to prevent the whales from heading towards the shore again, they moved away without any new problems arising.
The mystery of the strandings
Despite their name, pilot whales actually belong to the dei family Delphinidaethe group of cetaceans to which dolphins are part, and of which they represent the second largest species, after orcas. They measure between six and eight metres, and are highly social animals, living in herds of 10-50 specimens, a habit which unfortunately exposes them to the risk of mass strandings, because the members of the herd tend to move in groups along the same broken.
Regarding the reasons for the strandings, for now the mystery remains without explanation. What is certain is that for once our species does not seem to be responsible. It is more likely that it is the geography of some stretches of coast that misleads these animals, who rely on echolocation to chart their routes.
An extremely common phenomenon
It is no coincidence that strandings are particularly frequent in specific areas, such as New Zealand, where over 5,000 have been recorded since 1840, and the island of Tasmania. And they can involve a huge number of specimens: in 1918 when around a thousand specimens beached in New Zealand, and in 2017, another mass stranding involving more or less 600 animals.
Pilot whales are highly regarded in the culture of the Maori people, for whom they represent a “taonga”, a sacred treasure of profound cultural value. For this reason, at the end of the rescue a traditional Maori ceremony was held to pay homage to the three adults and the pilot whale calf who did not manage to survive the stranding.