Tasmania is a hotspot for mass whale strandings. Mark is the life-size, custom-made inflatable whale helping local communities learn how to deal with these events.
While the dress rehearsal with Mark is a happy scene, when a real whale needs rescuing it is a hard and sometimes bloody reality.Chris has also worked as a firefighter, but says he finds whale stranding more emotionally taxing.It's distressing when you can't do anything to rescue the whales, Chris said.
When an assessment is made that a pod cannot be saved, volunteer involvement is kept to the minimum needed to keep the whales comfortable till the end. "It's just such an amazing feeling … Watching them all mill around, looking at each other and squeaking," she says.Intense social connections bind sperm whale and pilot whale pods, the species which most commonly mass strand in Tasmania.
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