More than 40 pilot whales have died on a New Zealand beach following a mass stranding that rescuers described as “difficult and distressing.”
The pod of pilot whales was found stranded on the Ngawi coast near the village of Cape Palliser on the southern tip of New Zealand’s North Island just after 8 a.m. local time on Thursday, the country’s Department of Conservation (DOC) said in a statement posted on Facebook that morning.