About 20 pilot whales have spent the night stranded on Farewell Spit in Nelson's Golden Bay.
Yesterday afternoon a pod of whales was spotted close to the shore and at least one whale beached, Department of Conservation Golden Bay area manager John Mason said.
A member of Doc and the public managed to refloat it.
"They then continued to swim north towards the base of Farewell Spit, where they stranded right on dark last night.''
Members from Doc, Project Jonah and the public went out at fist light this morning where they had counted about 20 stranded whales.
High Tide is at 9.15am - when they would try for a refloat.
Conditions were working in the whales' favour, Mr Mason said.
"It's been dark which has been good for them - they suffer during daylight. If the sun's out they get sunburnt so it would have been cool last night, and it would have been dark, so the whales had the best possible conditions to spend the night on the beach.''
