Devastating scenes with the death of 145 whales on the beach of New Zealand

Up to 145 pilot whales died after being stranded on a secluded beach in New Zealand in a "heartbreaking" tragedy.

Devastating images showed immobile and half buried whales in the sand of Stewart Island of the country.

The creatures were discovered by a hiker camping in the area, which informed the Department of Conservation (DOC) Saturday night.

The DOC said that two groups of pilot whales were found stranded on the island, about 20 kilometers south of the South Island, New Zealand.

Tragically, half of them were already dead.

The decision was then made to drop the rest of the whales because of their poor condition and remoteness, said Ren Leppens, chief operating officer of DOC Rakiura.

"Unfortunately, the chances of successfully bailing the remaining whales are extremely low," said Mr. Leppens, who described it as the most humane thing to do.

"However, it's still a heartbreaking decision to make."

Whales are thought to have stayed on the beach for perhaps a day before being found in two groups, just over a mile away.

Stewart Island, also known as Rakiura, is home to about 380 people.

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of whale strandings in the world, although the exact cause of this phenomenon is not known.

The DOC has indicated that it responds to an average of 85 incidents per year, primarily for a single animal.

Many factors could contribute to these strandings of whales and dolphins, including disease, navigation errors, geographical features, fast-moving tides, predator attacks, and extreme weather conditions, according to the department.

Ten pygmy killer whales were also stranded on Sunday at 90 Mile Beach, on the west coast of the North Island. Two have since died and attempts have been made to bail out the rest.

The DOC stated that the two events would probably not be linked.

Last year, about 300 whales died on a beach on the northwestern tip of the South Island, in one of the largest strandings of whales recorded in New Zealand.

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