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Rescuers pushing and dragging whales managed to refloat 39 members of a beached pod during high tide Wednesday as dozens of other whales lay dead on a remote island off southern New Zealand, officials said.
Locals joined conservation specialists in the race to rescue surviving members of a 159-strong pod of pilot whales stranded on Stewart Island, 25 miles off the south coast of South Island. Rescuers poured seawater over the beached mammals to protect them from the afternoon heat.
By nightfall, the 39 whales had moved about a mile out into open sea and were heading south away from the stranding site.
Stewart Island’s worst whale grounding occurred in 1998, when 320 of the mammals swam ashore on remote Doughboy Bay and had to be put down.
