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Rescuers save pilot whales

Conservationists and volunteers used a high tide yesterday to refloat about 110 pilot whales from a beach where they became stranded a day earlier on New Zealand's South Island. At least 15 others died, a conservation official said.

Volunteers in the rescue included tourists from as far afield as China and Germany, many of whom had never seen whales before. Some of them were reminded of the New Zealand film Whale Rider about rescuing a stranded whale.

"It's just like Whale Rider but probably without the happy ending," said tourist Rebecca Archibald from Somerset, England, referring to the whales that died.

Archibald was helping to wet down a whale that was wrapped in a wet blanket to keep it cool.

Within a couple hours of sending the whales out to sea, about 10 of them headed back into shallow water about 4km south of the original site "with others milling offshore," marine researcher Andrew Baxter said.

"This isn't unheard of, occasionally we do get restrandings ... and we prepare for this," he told National Radio.

About 20 rescuers made a human chain to shepherd the mammals back to open water and were using a boat to keep the whales from returning as the tide retreated.
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