Thirty-three of the stranded pilot whales died over the weekend.
Thirty-three of the stranded pilot whales died over the weekend.
Thirty-three stranded pilot whales have died after almost 50 were found stranded in the Parengarenga Harbour, in the Far North.

Department of Conservation (DOC) staff, along with local iwi Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kuri and NgāiTakoto, responded to the mass stranding of 49 whales on Saturday.

A DOC spokeswoman said by the time teams arrived, 14 of the whales were already dead, and an attempt to re-float the surviving whales was made at high tide.

By Sunday, 16 of the whales had been successfully re-floated and ushered out of the harbour into open water, the spokeswoman said, but 33 had died.

"Later that day Project Jonah were phoned by a boatie who said the whales had returned to the harbour and 12 were bleeding after being attacked by sharks.

"Two Te Aupōuri kaitiaki returned to the harbour and beach to search for the whales but none were seen."

On Monday both DOC and local iwi returned to the harbour to make sure no whales had been re-stranded, but none were sighted.

Pilot whales travel in pod numbers of between 20 and 100, but often congregate in much bigger groups.

According to DOC, pilot whales are "prolific stranders", but this behaviour isn't well understood.

The biggest recorded pilot whale stranding was an estimated 1000 whales at the Chatham Islands in 1918.