There has been a second stranding of whales this week, with the latest occurring today near Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania's west coast.
A pod of approximately 230 whales are stranded on Ocean Beach, while a number of animals have also washed ashore on a sand flat inside Macquarie Harbour, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania said in a statement.
About half of the animals are reported to be alive.
Earlier this week, fourteen young male sperm whales washed ashore on King Island, off Tasmania's north coast. All fourteen of the whales were confirmed to have died yesterday.
Today's mass stranding also comes exactly two years after an enormous pod of around 470 whales was beached in almost the same location at Macquarie Harbour. The previous mass stranding, on September 21, 2020, left hundreds of whales dead.
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A team from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania's Marine Conservation Program (MCP) is assembling whale rescue gear and heading to the area.
They will work alongside staff from the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service and Tasmanian Police at Strahan.
Wildlife scientist Dr Vanessa Pirotta said it was "absolutely unusual" to see two whale strandings in the same week.
It was also very strange that today's Macquarie Harbour stranding occurred on exactly the same date as the one two years prior, she added.
"The fact that it also happened two years ago to the day, in a similar location, what is going on? That's really interesting," Pirotta said.
Unlike humpback whales or the southern right whale, pilot whales did not have predictable migration patterns, she said.
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Pirotta said it was still largely unknown why whale strandings happened.
"There are several theories, one could be misnavigation," she said.
"In that area it could be the topography. So you might have deep, deep waters going shallow relatively rapidly, with a shelf.
"There might be a sick individual that might have led the pod astray, they could be fleeing from something, you just don't know."
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While people would naturally be wanting to help in such situations, Pirotta said it was best to leave it to the authorities to manage the initial response.
"People have the best intentions but it's the authorities who know how to work around an animal that's very large and can be stressed and can potentially injure humans," she said.
"But people can help in a variety of ways, such as providing food or tea or coffee for those who are working on the front line.
"It's going be a very exhausting and environmentally challenging situation to deal with when you've got animals that are essentially dying on a beach."
The Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania said in its statement any stranding response was complex.
"If it is determined there is a need for help from the general public, a request will be made through various avenues," the statement said.
The department's Cetacean Incident Manual had undergone extensive an review since the 2020 mass stranding and would guide its stranding response, the statement said.
