Nov. 10 - Eighty whales were found stranded on a beach near an oil refinery in New Zealand. Local media reported that 37 of the whales died before they could be re-floated. The Department of Conservation (DOC) team was going to be on standby through the weekend and night to try and save as many whales as they could. The stranding was the first of its size in Northland for several years. Late last year and early in January, there were two large stranding incidents of pilot whales at Farewell Spit, Golden Bay, in less than a fortnight. Nearly 50 long-finned pilot whales died in one stranding, while another 21 died at Puponga beach, at the base of the spit. Whale experts have been unable to explain why the mammals apparently swim into dangerously shallow waters.