Wildlife officials are continuing their rescue efforts to save more than 30 pilot whales stranded in shallow waters off the coast of Everglades National Park in Florida on Thursday, NBC News reported.
Rescue efforts were suspended due to darkness late Wednesday and were set to resume at dawn Thursday morning. Ten whales are now dead and many others remain stranded in the remote area off Florida's Gust Coast, CBS News 12 reported.
The ability of the of the wildlife rescue teams to get the whales into deeper waters is critical to their survival.
"They need to be in deep water in order to feed. If we can't get them out, they could begin to be starving themselves," Linda Friar, spokeswoman for Everglades National Park, told NBC News.
By Wednesday, six whales were found dead and four more had to be euthanized.
It's unclear whether any more whales died overnight while the Coast Guard waited for dawn, she said.
"Pilot Whales strand fairly often," Denise Herzing, a marine mammologist and research director of the Wild Dolphin Project, told CBS News 12. "They live in large family groups, and they don't often leave each other if one of them strands."
Staff at Everglades National Park and marine mammal specialists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been desperately working to rescue the stranded whales after they were discovered on Tuesday afternoon by a fishing guide.
Friar said the mission faces many challenges as the whales are stranded about 30 miles away from land in an area that can only be reached by boat. According to NBC News, the rescue efforts are compounded by the social nature of the whales.
"Part of the issue is that the animals are cohesive type of group," Friar said. "They're really resistant to leaving any members of their pod behind."
