Nearly 500 pilot whales dead after two mass strandings in New Zealand

Hundreds of pilot whales are dead after two mass stranding events occurred days apart in New Zealand, conservation officials announced on Wednesday. The strandings continue a deadly trend that has rocked the Oceania region in recent weeks. 

New Zealand's Department of Conservation said Wednesday that the most recent strandings occurred just days apart. One group of approximately 240 pilot whales was found in the northwest of the nation's Chatham Island on October 7. A second stranded group of roughly the same number was found on October 10 at Waihere Bay on Pitt Island, which the department says is New Zealand's "most remote inhabited island, with limited communications and challenging logistics." 

Some of the whales were dead by the time conservation officials were able to respond to the scene. Those that were still alive, however, were euthanized to "minimize suffering," Dave Lundquist, technical advisor marine for the Department of Conservation said.