View Comments
Rescuers help support melon-headed whales in a hotel's saltwater pool in Point Plomer, Australia. Two of the rare whales that washed up on beaches returned to the sea Friday. The tropical melon-headed whales - named for their round heads - average 7 feet long and 1,100 pounds. Their numbers are so few that sightings of them are rare. Seven whales beached themselves on the seashore about 250 miles north of Sydney on Tuesday. When volunteers and wildlife workers tried to take them back out to sea the next day, one whale died. Worried the others might die in pounding surf, wildlife officials checked them into a nearby hotel swimming pool, where they recuperated in the clean, still saltwater.