The Beach That Swallows Whales: Why Whole Pods Keep Coming Ashore to Die
On the morning of February 10, 2017, volunteers reached Farewell Spit at first light and found the tideline covered with whales. Farewell Spit is a long, pale hook of sand at the northern tip of New Zealand's South Island, curving out to enclose Golden Bay, and during the night a pod of long-finned pilot whales had come ashore along it. Officials put the number at about 416 animals. Roughly seven in ten were already dead. The survivors lay heaving in the shallows beside the bodies of their own families, still calling.
What followed was one of the largest civilian rescue efforts ever mounted for stranded cetaceans. Around 500 volunteers waded into the cold water and formed human chains, holding the living animals upright, keeping their skin wet and their blowholes clear, waiting for the tide. At high water the teams managed to coax a hundred or more of the survivors back out to sea. The whales turned around and swam straight back onto the sand. The refloating was attempted again, and again a large share of the animals re-stranded in the same place they had just been carried out of.
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