Wellington (dpa) – A pod of 90 pilot whales stranded on a remote beach at the top of New Zealand's South Island on Monday, a media report said. A Department of Conservation manager, John Mason, appealed for volunteers to go to the area, off Farewell Spit, to assist efforts to refloat them, the Nelson Mail reported. Whale strandings are not uncommon on the 24-kilometre-long sandspit, a wildlife refuge at the north-western extremity of the South Island. The paper said it would be the third stranding in the current summer. Eighteen long-finned pilot whales were successfully refloated after 25 of a pod of 70 stranded this month. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/FYsMp Tags: Beached, New Zealand, Whales Section: Animals, Oceana