Department of Conservation (DOC) stranding incident controller Steve Goddard said the decision to euthanase the young whale was made based on its condition and to help prevent the surviving 40-strong pod from re-stranding. DOC staff spent most of the day trying to help the lone whale regain its balance but it did not seem to be doing well. The pod of 40 was reported travelling at about 2 knots eastward following the death of the lone whale. The lone sub-adult was stranded at Reotahi, opposite the refinery. Decisions to euthanase marine mammals were always very hard but the welfare of the majority of the animals and health of the single whale had to be considered, Mr Goddard said.

Meanwhile a DOC team was burying the 37 other whales which died during the stranding. The stranding was the first of its size in Northland for several years. In 2005 and in January 2006 there were two large strandings of pilot whales at Farewell Spit, Golden Bay, in less than a fortnight. Nearly 50 long-finned pilot whales died in one stranding, while another 21 died at Puponga beach. The Puponga stranding involved a pod of more than 120, and a massive rescue effort by hundreds of volunteers and DOC staff managed to refloat 100.

The biggest recorded mass stranding on the New Zealand coast involved 1000 pilot whales on the Chatham Islands in 1918, and the largest in recent years saw 450 of the same species beached on Great Barrier Island in 1985. Rescuers successfully refloated 324 of those mammals.

Image copyright: Denise Didsbury