Volunteers started arriving as soon as news of a mass stranding broke: Almost 50 pilot whales had become stranded on the northeastern Indonesian island of Mandura. Though at first, they were able to push some of the whales back, they restranded quickly. By the next day, at least 45 pilot whales were declared dead, while only three had been successfully returned to the sea.
Some of the carcasses were sent to the regional university for an investigation into the cause of stranding. The rest was buried on the beach by Saturday afternoon.
Pilot whales’ high sociality and life in big groups make them prone to mass strandings. Only last year, several hundred pilot whales had stranded and died on the coast of Tasmania, New Zealand.
The full article can be found here: At Least 45 Pilot Whales Die While Beached in Indonesia | Voice of America - English (voanews.com)
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