Approximately 200 whales have perished and only 35 are still alive as a result of a huge stranding this week in Australia, according to rescue teams.
The pilot whales were discovered Wednesday morning stranded on a Tasmanian beach that was open to the elements.
The surviving whales are still being saved by rescue attempts.
“We are primarily focused this morning on really getting into that rescue operation and getting [the whales] released,” Brendon Clark of the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service told the Australia Broadcasting Corporation on Thursday.
“We are conscious that some of them may re-beach themselves and so we’ll be monitoring that.”
Approximately half of the whales were thought to still be alive by rescuers at one point.
Following the discovery of more than a dozen dead sperm whales on another beach, most of which were young males thought to be a part of the same bachelor pod, this is the second mass stranding of whales in Tasmania this week.
Marine experts have been perplexed by whale stranding cases for many years.
More than 450 pilot whales were discovered in 2020, which was Tasmania’s largest stranding.
