Crying shame on Coromandel sands

Dead pilot whales line Opoutere Beach as rescuers work on refloating the last three still alive. Picture / Greg Bowker

When the sun rose over Opoutere Beach yesterday morning black bodies littered the sand.

"It's like a mass funeral, so sad. It's a crying shame," said Aylsa Keenan.

The resident of the Coromandel beach settlement had spent a cold night in the water stroking, rocking and comforting 21 surviving pilot whales struggling on the hard sand.

Dozens of volunteers ferried buckets of water in a relay system.

Of the pod of 74, 53 were dead by the time they were discovered on the beach, near Whangamata, about 10am on Monday.

Department of Conservation staff say the pod probably beached on the high tide about 9pm on Sunday.

DoC staff, Project Jonah whale rescue workers and volunteers managed to refloat 18 of the survivors at high tide on Monday night.

Digger driver Seth Popich helped dig trenches to surround the whales in pools of water as they waited for the tide to turn.

Tired and cold volunteers stood at sunrise yesterday and watched as rescuers went on trying to save the last three whales.

But the waves lapped just out of reach.

Project Jonah worker Binz Speedy sat stroking one whale, sheltering it from the sand whipped up by the wind.

She had spent all night doing half-hour shifts in a group of five or six, nursing the giant creature.

"It was a full moon last night and all you could really see were black things.

"To see it now in the light is devastating."

Anglican minister Walter Wells arrived to farewell the dead with a karakia.

"They are the children of Tangaroa, the god of the sea. They breathe the same air as us and blood runs through them just like humans," he said, spraying each dead animal with water before it was dragged by tractor to a mass grave down the beach.

"Their spirit is just like ours," Mr Wells said.

Soon after a cheer and cries of "Go you beauty" and "Go Jonah go" rang out.

The last three whales were refloated, but tears soon followed as the weakest swam back to shore.

"It has been too long," said DoC officer Rob Chappell.

DoC ranger Eddie Murphy, standing by his ute holding a rifle, took a deep breath and put the whale out of its misery.

Opoutere local Sam Savage, 81, was aged 5 when he last saw a pod of pilot whales strand on his beach.

"It was a couple of hundred yards down the beach," he said, pointing to the burial area.

"This is certainly a sad sight."

Meanwhile, a 10m sperm whale was found stranded and dead on an isolated beach between Karekare and Whatipu, west of Auckland.

Conservation Department spokeswoman Fiona Oliphant said it was in the same area where 12 sperm whales stranded a year ago, and was not connected with the pilot whale stranding at Opoutere.

Department staff planned to pull the whale up the beach at low tide last night and will bury it today.