A pod of around 40 whales was sighted swimming close to the shore in shallow muddy water early on Saturday before some of them got stranded, the department said in a statement on its Facebook account. The rest remained offshore but in shallow waters.
Rangers and volunteers were on-site, it said. “We appreciate the public’s concern but at this stage, NO FURTHER HELP IS NEEDED.”
The next high tide was expected Saturday evening.
The whales were stranded on a beach in the Coromandel Peninsula. Auckland, the country’s biggest city, lies 55 km to the west, on the far shore of the Hauraki Gulf.
In late September, several hundred whales died in shallow waters off the Australian coast in one of the world’s biggest mass whale strandings.
Read: Australia Plans Disposal of Hundreds of Stranded Whale Carcasses