(Hobart) About 200 pilot dolphins or pilot whales perished after being stranded on a beach in Tasmania, an island located south of Australia, two years after a similar disaster which had occurred on this same part of the coast west.
Posted at 9:42 p.m.
Updated at 11:10 p.m.
Only 35 of the approximately 230 cetaceans discovered on the beach the day before were still alive, Brendon Clark, director of operations for the state wildlife service, told reporters at the scene.
PHOTO PROVIDED/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Aerial footage showed dozens of shiny black mammals stranded on Ocean Beach, along a wide sandy beach in contact with the cold waters of the Southern Ocean.
“On the beach, we still have about 35 animals still alive and this morning the main objective will be to save them and free them,” said Mr Clark who leads the operation.
“Unfortunately, the mortality rate for this stranding is high. It is mainly due to the conditions on Ocean Beach, ”he said.
“The environmental conditions, the undertow on the exposed west coast, Ocean Beach, certainly have consequences for the animals,” he added.
Locals had covered the cetaceans with blankets and doused them with buckets of water to keep them alive after they were found on the beach.
The cetaceans were stranded near Macquarie Harbour, the scene almost two years ago to the day of another massive stranding, involving nearly 500 stranded pilot dolphins.
More than 300 of them were then dead, despite the efforts of dozens of volunteers who struggled for days in the freezing waters of Tasmania to free the animals.
Mr Clark said conditions are tougher this year than two years ago as the animals were in “much more sheltered waters”.
“A misadventure? »
Rescuers have triaged cetaceans to assess which ones have the best chance of survival, he said.
“Today the focus will be on rescue operations and their release.”
The causes of these major strandings are not fully known.
Researchers have suggested they could be caused by groups of cetaceans straying after feeding too close to shore.
These pilot whales, which can grow up to six meters, being very sociable animals, they can follow members of their group who get lost and find themselves in danger.
This sometimes occurs when old, sick, or injured animals swim to shore and other cetaceans in the group follow them, attempting to respond to distress signals from the trapped animals.
Other researchers believe that gently sloping beaches — like those in Tasmania — interfere with the sonar of pilot dolphins and trick them into believing they are offshore.
This event occurred a few hours after a dozen young sperm whales were found dead, also stranded, on King Island, between Tasmania and mainland Australia.
The cause of the death of the sperm whales could be a “mishap”, as biologist Kris Carlyon of the conservation agency of this island state evokes with the local newspaper Mercury.
This is “the most common reason for strandings”, he explains. “They were able to look for food near the shore […] they may have been caught at low tide,” Mr Carlyon said.
Strandings are also common in New Zealand, Australia’s neighbour.
Some 300 animals are affected each year, according to official data.
A single stranding can also involve several hundred animals when a large group of marine mammals are involved, such as in 2017 when 700 pilot dolphins stranded together on the New Zealand coast.