Conservationists are today frantically battling to rescue more than a dozen pilot whales stranded off the Florida coast.The U.S. Coast Guard said it had found at least 16 pilot whales, including one calf, in three locations over a distance of about seven miles.
A team of around 50 rescuers have managed to get six of the whales into a sea pen they have constructed, but at least two others have died.
Marine mammal experts said it was unclear why the animals had beached themselves.
The whales were found stranded on Thursday afternoon as close as 200 yards from the shore in shallow Gulf of Mexico waters.
Art Cooper, chairman of the Marine Mammal Conservancy, said rescuers are attempting to move all the stranded whales, which are presumed to be from the same pod, to one location.
Before sunset on Thursday, responders had built a sea pen at one of the sites and were treating six of the whales.
Mr Cooper said that rescuers did not know why the whales had become stranded. Read More
