A pod of 49 long-finned pilot whales was found at FarewellSpit, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of the South Island tourist town ofNelson.
Farewell Spit is a 26-kilometre hook of sand that protrudesinto the sea at Golden Bay in New Zealand.
According to AFP,?nine of the whales had died and more than 60 people were working to keepthe survivors alive for an attempt to refloat them at high tide, the DOC said.
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"Marine mammal medics will assist with refloating thewhales and caring for them on the beach, keeping them cool and wet until theycan be refloated," a DOC spokeswoman said.
Reports state that the volunteers stood with the whales for more than an hour in chest-deep water, they did not seem motivated to swim out to deeper water.
Whales strand themselves either from chasing prey too far inshore to trying to protect a sick member of the group or escaping a predator, reports ABC.
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According to the Guardian, the last mass stranding there wasin February 2017, when an estimated 600-700 whales were beached at FarewellSpit and it ended up in 250 deaths.
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Last year nearly 100 pilot whales and bottlenose dolphinsdied in a mass stranding on the remote Chatham Islands, about 800km (497 miles)off New Zealand¡¯s east coast.