Almost 60 pilot whales are feared to have died in a mass beaching in a remote New Zealand bay, as wild weather hampers efforts to refloat them, conservation officials said Thursday.

A pod of about 80 whales was found stranded on Wednesday at Spirits Bay, 320 kilometres (200 miles) northwest of Auckland, the second mass beaching in the area in two months.

While 25 of the whales were already dead, the Department of Conservation called in 100 volunteers to help the remaining mammals survive.

But the department's Carolyn Smith said only 24 of the whales remained alive on Thursday morning, although it was difficult to gauge the exact number of dead because some carcasses had floated out to sea.

"It's pretty cold and arduous for the people on the beach trying to save the whales," she told Radio NZ.

Smith said heavy swells and high seas were making it impossible to refloat the whales at Spirits Bay and the department was considering using trucks to move them to a more sheltered beach about an hour's drive away.

Last month, 63 pilot whales stranded themselves near Kaitaia, about 90 kilometres away. Only nine survived.

Scientists are unsure why pilot whales beach themselves, although they speculate it may occur when their sonar becomes scrambled in shallow water or when a sick member of the pod heads for shore and others follow.

earlier related report
Elderly Malaysian rhino enlisted in breeding attempt
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) Sept 23, 2010 - Malaysian wildlife officials on Borneo island said Thursday they will try to artificially inseminate an elderly female rhinoceros in a bid to revive one of the world's most endangered species.

Gelegub, a Sumatran rhino who at 28-years-old is equivalent to a 70-something grandmother in human terms, will be impregnated with sperm from a virile young male rhino.

"Gelegub is too old to mate normally and the mating ritual of rhinos is quite violent so this would be one of the best ways to try and get her pregnant and give birth to a rhino in captivity," said Sen Nathan, coordinator of the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary where the procedure will be carried out.

Nathan said the only breeding facility in the world that has had any success in producing Sumatran rhino calves in captivity is the Cincinnati Zoo in the United States, which has produced three calves over the last decade.

"Our priority of course is to have natural mating in the first place but at the moment we only have one male rhino in captivity and Gelegub is the only other viable female that we have," he told AFP.

"It is critical that we try and get the rhinos to reproduce as there are only 50 such rhinos in the region and without reproduction, they face imminent extinction."

Nathan said Gelegub will be injected with hormones in November to stimulate the production of eggs, which will be removed and fertilised, hopefully producing viable embryos for implantation.

Spare embryos will be frozen for implantation in surrogates at a later date.

Between 30 to 50 of the Borneo sub-species of the Sumatran rhinos are known to remain in the wild in Borneo -- a vast island shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

It is distinguished from other Sumatran rhinos by its relatively small size, small teeth and distinctively shaped head.

Only 150 to 300 Sumatran rhino are known to exist in the wild, making it one of the world's most endangered species, with only small groups left on Indonesia's Sumatra island, the north of Borneo and peninsular Malaysia.