"It's a lot more than usual.
"Prior to that there have only been two in the last 13 years," the Owaka-based ranger said yesterday.
The other deaths were of two dusky and one southern right whale dolphins found in different spots along the coast.
Autopsy reports were not yet completed on those deaths, she said.
The first whale, a Gray's beaked or scamperdown whale, was found washed up on a beach near Kaka Point by local residents and reported to Doc on Sunday night.
The female 5m-long whale had injuries to its head and beak indicating it could have been hit by a "significant-sized" propeller causing its death, she said.
Then yesterday surfers reported seeing a dead whale washed up on a Long Point beach.
It was a Cuvier's beaked or goose-beaked whale about 6m-long and had been dead for some time, judging by the level of decomposition, she said.
Doc biodiversity programme manager David Agnew said the two deaths appeared to be a coincidence.
Beaked whales were a deep-water species.
There had been 148 Grays reported washed ashore since 1873 and 80 strandings of the Cuvier's whale.
"They're reasonably common around New Zealand."
Measurements, photographs and skin samples had been taken from the two whales for a national data base and research.
Iwi had been consulted on the deaths and a decision would made on how to deal with the whales once it was known if they were needed for any further scientific research, he said.
Normally, they were buried, or if found in an isolated spot, left to decompose.
