TEight surviving whales stranded at Farewell Spit in Golden Bay successfully refloated

Eight pilot whales which were stranded at Farewell Spit in Golden Bay have been successfully refloated by rescuers.

Ten whales originally stranded on Tuesday, but two had since died.

The Department of Conservation confirmed the whales had been successfully refloated on Wednesday evening.

Efforts to refloat the remaining whales started at high tide, at about 5pm, DOC's Golden Bay operations manager Ross Trotter said.

Trotter said rain had been keeping the eight remaining whales wet and cool, but the health of three of them had deteriorated.

They received the report about 6.30pm on Tuesday about the stranding in an area known as Triangle Flat at the base of Farewell Spit.

Project Jonah and iwi assisted DOC with the refloat.

Trotter said rescuers had not seen these whales at Farewell Spit previously. However, it was clear they had stranded in another location before.

"They are showing signs of having been sunburnt and have healed over, so possibly in the last few weeks they have been beached somewhere else."

While there were many theories about why strandings happened so often at Farewell Spit, the shape of the bay was a possible factor, he said.

A pod of pilot whales was refloated several times in December.

Not all of them survived.

Among those that did, some were seen in the area even after being refloated again.

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