A pod of pilot whales stranded on Farewell Spit. A spit is a narrow finger of land, which juts out into the sea. Farewell Spit is at the far north of Te Waipounamu (the South Island). It is 24km long, mostly sand and juts out into Cook Strait.
Thirty-nine whales were in the pod. DoC (the Department of Conservation) officers found them yesterday morning but 12 of them were already dead. DoC decided it was not possible to re-float the whales. They were too high on the beach, probably thrown on the beach during a very high tide. By the morning, the tide was low and the wind was strong. DoC decided to shoot the remaining whales so that they did not suffer.
Nearly every summer, whales strand on Farewell Spit. Often many volunteers help to re-float whales but it is not always successful. Often the whales swim back to the beach again. In January 2012, 99 whales stranded on Farewell Spit and only 17 of those were saved.
Nobody really knows why whales strand. The sea floor in Cook Strait is muddy and it is possible the whales do not know where they are. They then swim into shallow water and cannot get back into deep water again.
Vocabulary
- strand (v) – cannot escape
- pod of whales (n) – group of whales (compare: a herd of cows, a flock of sheep, a school of fish)
- juts out (v) – pushes out into the sea like a finger
- Te Waipounamu is the Maori name for the South Island. It means the waters of greenstone. The North Island is Te Ika-a-Maui, the fish of Maui.
- a strait (n) – narrow sea between two islands
- suffer (v) – feel pain
- re-float (v) – float them again
Yesterday, 13 pilot whales were stranded at Farewell Spit. Eight of them were dead by this morning. Volunteers and DOC staff worked all day to re-float the remaining whales. They covered the whales with wet cloths and tipped buckets of water over them until the tide was low enough to push the whales out into the sea. DOC hopes the whales will swim out into the deep sea and not return.