Australia Pilot Whales' Beaching: 45 pilot whales euthanised after re-stranding at Cheynes beach
The last of nearly 100 pilot whales that had stranded themselves on a beach in Western Australia have been eventually euthanized after multiple attempts to rescue them failed. The long-finned whales had beached themselves on Tuesday on the Cheynes Beach, south of the capital Perth. Australia had announced yesterday that 51 of the whales had already died. Eventually, the remaining 45 had to be put down after efforts to lead them deeper into the water failed, said the Western Australia Parks and Wildlife Service in a statement. Officials said that they were forced to make the "difficult decision" to "avoid prolonged suffering. More than 250 volunteers and a team comprising marine life experts had joined a rescue mission to try and coax the remaining 45 whales to the ocean. But the Parks and Wildlife Service of Western Australia said that the surviving whales later re-stranded themselves, with experts concluding that euthanizing them was the best option to “avoid prolonging their suffering”.
#Pilotwhalesaustralia #Pilotwhaleseuthanised #Cheynesbeach
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#Pilotwhalesaustralia #Pilotwhaleseuthanised #Cheynesbeach
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NewsTranscript
00:00 The last of nearly 100 pilot whales that had stranded themselves on a beach in Western
00:19 Australia had been eventually euthanized after multiple attempts to rescue them failed.
00:25 The long-finned whales had beached themselves on Tuesday on the Shanes Beach, south of the
00:29 capital Perth.
00:31 Australia had announced yesterday that 51 of those whales had already died.
00:35 Eventually, the remaining 45 had to be put down after efforts to lead them deeper into
00:41 the water failed.
00:43 Officials said that they were forced to make the difficult decision to avoid prolonged
00:47 suffering.
00:48 More than 250 volunteers and a team comprising marine life experts had joined a rescue mission
00:54 to try and persuade the remaining 45 whales to the ocean.
00:57 But the Parks and Wildlife Service of Western Australia said that the surviving whales later
01:03 re-stranded themselves, with experts concluding that euthanizing them was the best option
01:08 to avoid prolonging their suffering.
01:10 Once a pilot whale, which can grow up to 24 feet in length and weigh up to 6,600 pounds,
01:17 is out of the water, its organs can be gradually crushed under its own weight.
01:22 Even when whales are successfully returned to the sea, they will often strand themselves
01:26 again.
01:27 Long-finned pilot whales are identified by their black color and bulbous foreheads.
01:32 They can be found in waters of the Southern Hemisphere and North Atlantic Ocean.
01:36 These mammals are highly social, who often maintain complex familial relationships with
01:41 their pods from birth.
01:42 If one animal is in difficulty and becomes stranded, the rest of the group, or at least
01:47 some of them, will follow that animal in trouble and will get stranded as well.
01:53 This is not the first instance of stranding of pilot whales.
01:56 There have been several instances of pilot whales stranding themselves, and pilot whales
02:00 stranding are common across the world.
02:03 Last September, around 200 were beached along the coast of Tasmania.
02:07 Of that number, only 35 had survived and were re-floated.
02:12 Tasmania's largest stranding was in 2020, when more than 450 pilot whales were found.
02:17 Earlier this month, a pod of more than 50 pilot whales had died after a mass stranding
02:22 on a north-western Scottish island on the Isle of Lois.
02:26 Wildlife experts speculate that beaching could be an indicator of stress or illness within
02:31 the pod, but the reasons will continue to remain a mystery.
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