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New Zealand experts are questioning whether refloating stranded whales benefits the mammals - or the humans trying to save them.
In a new documentary, marine scientists from Te Papa and a University of Auckland professor ask whether attempts to refloat whales are a selfish pursuit, designed to make humans feel good.
"What are you doing when you push a whale back out to sea?" Anton Van Helden, a marine mammal curator at Te Papa, asks in Death on the Beach, an independent documentary by production company The TV Set.
"Is it for the benefit of the whale or the benefit of you?... Maybe in terms of the welfare of the whale it's a much more generous thing to do to actually euthanase it."
As more animal species globally become endangered, seemingly senseless whale strandings disturb the public more than ever. But the scientists say there are two views.
"There is something driving the animals on to the beach," Scott Baker, ecology professor at the University of Auckland, tells the documentary makers.
"If you observe the animals they are not confused in the sense that they have chosen to strand themselves and when pushed off will choose to strand themselves again. To biologists [whale strandings] remain one of the most unique phenomenons in nature."
The documentary follows the stranding of 129 pilot whales at Puponga Beach at the top of the South Island last year, and the efforts of the community to save them. All were re-floated, although 50 returned to the beach immediately and had to be re-floated a second time.
"People want to feel like they are doing something for nature, and it has more of a feeling of reward than planting a tree... There's something in big group events, as well, where people flock together for a common good," producer and director Justin Pemberton said.
The programme, which screens on TV One at noon today, features footage of 49 whales which have been shot and a conservation officer describing how he killed them.
Pemberton said many people did not realise the way some whales were euthanased when there was no hope of rescue, or that scientists often cut up the carcasses for research.
Scientists still have no idea what causes whales to strand on beaches - the first known case was documented by Aristotle over 2000 years ago. Most theories revolve around one or more of the herd being sick and stranding, or navigational problems for the sonar-reliant animals in shallow sea.
New Zealand is one of the most common places in the world for whales to strand, with over 700 whales stranding on our beaches each year.
"I wondered why it is that whales connect with humans so much more so than a stranded stingray or something," asked Pemberton. "People put themselves at risk to save them... They are social creatures, so we can relate to them - they care for their young, there's a form of communication between them, but people feel the whale has a bond with them."
* Death on the Beach, TV1, 12pm
Whale strandings are the subject of a photographic exhibition opening on July 13 at the Auckland Museum. The images document strandings on the Whatipu coastline between 2004 and 2005.
