Nearly 150 beached whales die after mass stranding in Australia

Source: Washington Post

More than 150 short-finned pilot whales stranded themselves Thursday on the southwestern tip of Australia, stunning parks officials and prompting a massive rescue effort to save as many as possible.

The mass beaching likely took place sometime Wednesday night to early Thursday morning, local time, at Hamelin Bay in Western Australia, according to the state's parks and wildlife service. Videos of the scene showed dozens of the animals piled against each other on the shore, many with their tails still wiggling, as onlookers expressed concern. Some whales were fully on dry land, while others were in shallow waters.

It's unclear exactly when the distressed animals were discovered — but by 9:30 a.m., about 75 of the whales had died, the parks service said. Officials soon shut the beach down, issued a shark alert for the area and rushed equipment and trained volunteers to the site to try to return the pilot whales to deeper water.

“The strength of the animals and the windy and possibly wet weather conditions will affect when and where we attempt to move them out to sea,” Jeremy Chick, incident controller for the parks and wildlife service, said at the time. “The main objectives are to ensure the safety of staff and volunteers as well as the whales' greatest chance of survival.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/03/23/nearly-150-beached-whales-die-after-mass-stranding-in-australia/

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This is the kind of issue that would be the top of a rational educated mature American President's list of important stories to understand at a deeper level.

Trump is probably thinking how can he get this meat on a table at a discount.