Wildlife experts and volunteers in the Florida Keys have rescued seven of a group of pilot whales stranded in shallow waters and are using boats and a helicopter to locate more of the animals, officials said on Friday. At least three of the group had died after around 16 of the marine mammals became stranded since late on Thursday in shallows and on flats in the waters off Cudjoe Key, a labyrinth of mangrove-fringed islets in the Lower Florida Keys. More than 100 people, including Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials and volunteers, backed by a flotilla of small boats and a Coast Guard helicopter, were scouring the area looking for more of the beached whales. "Every hour is critical," Karrie Carnes, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spokeswoman who was at the scene, told Reuters.
Wildlife experts and volunteers in the Florida Keys have rescued seven of a group of pilot whales stranded in shallow waters and are using boats and a helicopter to locate more of the animals, officials said on Friday.
At least three of the group had died after around 16 of the marine mammals became stranded since late on Thursday in shallows and on flats in the waters off Cudjoe Key, a labyrinth of mangrove-fringed islets in the Lower Florida Keys.
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More than 100 people, including Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials and volunteers, backed by a flotilla of small boats and a Coast Guard helicopter, were scouring the area looking for more of the beached whales.
"Every hour is critical," Karrie Carnes, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spokeswoman who was at the scene, told Reuters.
Mass strandings of pilot whales, a smaller whale species that has a bulbous forehead and can grow to between 12 to 18 feet in length, are quite common across the world, from New Zealand to Senegal.
The sleek black animals somehow become disoriented and run aground in shallows.
"Time is of the essence because every hour that passes these animals are ... exposed to sunlight, to the heat, they may not be eating ... so for those that are alive it is vital that we find them as soon as possible," Carnes said by phone.
The seven rescued whales, including one calf, had been transported to a floating protective sea pen where they were being cared for by vets and rehydrated.
"We have brought two dead animals to shore, we have one more dead one on the way and ... we have six unconfirmed dead," Carnes said, adding that authorities were trying to verify reports of beached whales coming in over a wide area.
"It's complicated. We're looking at an area of about 10-12 miles... this isn't a concentrated, on-the-beach kind of stranding," Carnes said.
Photo shows maember of the Marine Mammal Conservancy tending to two stranded pilot whales near Cudjoe Key. Some of the 16 whales were stranded in ankle-deep water. (Mariela Care/Florida Keys News Bureau) Credit: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/06/us-florida-whales-idUSTRE7455YD20110506
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