22 sperm whales die in Australia

Wasif Chudhary

Sydney - Rescuers were racing against the clock on Monday to save two huge sperm whales stranded on a Tasmanian sandbank after 22 others died, the Parks and Wildlife Service said.
Marine mammal specialists were on site in Macquarie Harbour at Strahan on Tasmania's northwest coast, but it was proving to be a slow process.
Twenty-two of the whales weighing two tons and up to 12m long washed ashore on Saturday at Ocean Beach near Strahan and all of them died.
Four others came into the harbour and stranded themselves on a sandbank. Two were successfully refloated and swam back out to sea but two remained stuck.
Whale beachings are relatively common in Australia, and they usually occur in the summer months around December around Tasmania.

Before this

A pod of 107 pilot whales stranded on a remote New Zealand beach had died, including 48 that were put down.