A pod of beached pilot whales rescued by locals on Sunday were just trying to die, and should have been left alone, says the Department of Conservation.

The whales, which stranded themselves on Farewell Spit at Golden Bay on Friday, mostly died, but around 60 were rescued yesterday, by a group of environmentalists and volunteers who DOC have described as “reckless” and “selfish.”

“I think too often members of the public, and tourists alike, jump to act based on the fickle emotion of the moment,” said DOC area manager Andrew Lamason. “They don’t stop to think about it from the whales’ perspective, to consider what’s truly happening here.

“Perhaps instead of thinking ‘Oh goodness, there’s some stranded whales, we ought to save them’, they should first ask themselves ‘Is this really a terrible mistake or a tragedy? Or is this in fact just nature running its course? Perhaps these whales want to die.’”

“And that is exactly what’s happening here,” he said.

Lamason explained that Farewell Spit is called Farewell Spit “for a reason,” and that whales know that it’s a safe and easy place to strand themselves and slowly suffocate to death.

“Life as a whale is utterly shit,” he said. “We have to understand that.

“If you were a whale, you’d want to die too, and you’d want to die in peace without a bunch of unshaven human beings coming along to fuck it up.

“That’s what these people [who rescued the whales] have to realise they’ve done; they’ve gone and fucked it up.

“There’s 60 whales out there who just wanted to die, who now have to go on living, more than half their friends and family succeeded in killing themselves, so they’re lonely to boot, and what are they going to do? Go strand themselves again? Likely not, lest they have to once again endure the horrible experience of being hauled back into the ocean.”

DOC intends to issue those who rescued the whales with a “stern reprimand,” and will be sending a small mission off the coast of Golden Bay this evening, to attempt to capture the saved whales, haul them back onto the beach, and leave them to die.