Social Pilot Whales Prone to Beaching

Social Pilot Whales Prone to Beaching
Rescuers work to save a pod of whales stranded on a sandbar in Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania on September 22, 2020. Brodie Weeding/Getty Images
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The cause of Australia’s biggest mass whale stranding will likely remain a mystery but the tight-knit, social nature of the species involved may have played a big part.

As of Friday, almost 100 of some 470 long-finned pilot whales had been rescued from sandbars at Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania’s rugged west coast.