Hundreds of whales stranded in Australia

350 pilot whales have perished on the Tasmanian coastline of Australia in one of the worst mass strandings of the marine mammals on record.

Last week, 470 pilot whales, the highest number in Australia's history, beached themselves on the sandbanks of Tasmania's western coast. A sixty-strong rescue crew of conservationists and skilled volunteers have been in the water for several days tirelessly refloating and shepherding the hefty cetaceans back out to the open ocean.

Pilot whales are a gregarious species which typically travel together in the same tight-knit pod over their whole lives. One problem the rescue teams face is that a number of refloated whales sought out members of their family and became stranded for a second time.

With rescue efforts seeing 109 refloated pilot whales safely out to sea, the remains of the deceased whales must now be carefully disposed of in order to protect the environment and dissuade the pod's released whales from returning. Why whales become stranded remains a conundrum to which conservationists still seek an answer.

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