'72 whales die in mass stranding in Australia'

Seventy-two whales have died after becoming stranded on rocks in southern Australia, one week after 53 of the giant animals died nearby in a similar beaching, an official said Sunday. The long-finned pilot whales are believed to have beached themselves at the rocky and remote Sandy Cape on the west coast of the southern island of Tasmania on Saturday.
"There are 72 deceased animals," Chris Arthur of Tasmania's Parks and Wildlife Service told AFP. Arthur said rescuers had shepherded 32 more whales, which had been trapped in a channel offshore among reefs, to safety using a small boat and these animals were now swimming strongly.
A rescue team reached the area Sunday but found only two of the pilot whales, which can reach up to more than seven metres (20 feet) in length and weigh up to three tonnes, alive. "There were two alive in the rocky shore, but they died earlier this afternoon," Arthur said.