A pod of 77 pilot whales has washed ashore on a beach in Orkney in what could be the biggest mass strandings for decades.
Rescuers from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) have established 12 of the animals at Tresness Beach on the island of Sanday are still alive - but it is unlikely they can be saved.
The pod includes male whales up to seven meters (22ft) long as well as females, calves and juveniles.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A pod of 77 pilot whales has washed ashore on a beach in Orkney in what could be the biggest mass strandings for decades.Rescuers from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) have established 12 of the animals at Tresness Beach on the island of Sanday are still alive - but it is unlikely they can be saved.The pod includes male whales up to seven meters (22ft) long as well as females, calves and juveniles.Experts say it is too early to know what has caused the stranding, but it is likely one of the whales got into trouble and the rest of the pod tried to help.Members of the public are being asked to stay away from the area while assessments and rescue efforts take place.
One was successfully re-floated while the rest had to be euthanised.Between 60-70 of the animals came into shallow waters in Sutherland in 2011.According to the Natural History Museum, external, the largest UK stranding took place in 1927 when 126 out of more than 130 false killer whales died in the Dornoch Firth in the Highlands.
Experts from the BDMLR, the Scottish SPCA and marine vets from the Scottish mainland are on their way to Sanday to do what they can for the whales.The area is currently cut off by the high tide and the sand on the beach where they have stranded is proving too soft to allow the mammals to be righted.
The soft sand means the whales are falling back over when the rescuers attempt to right them.Emma Neave-Webb from BDMLR said the latest stranding was a “big, big incident”.She told BBC Scotland News: "There are whales everywhere.
"BDMLR medics are being brought in from mainland Orkney and Inverness to help with the rescue attempt, but Ms Neave-Webb said it is unlikely many will be saved.
“We will do our utmost best obviously but they have been here for quite some time so I think we have to be slightly pragmatic about it,” she said.Ms Naeve-Webb described the scene on Tresness Beach as “really quite horrible” and “hugely emotional”.
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