Most of the 500 whales stranded (搁浅)off Tasmania have now died. Dozens more stricken whales have been found in Australia’s largest ever mass stranding. The estimated total now stands at around 500, with the majority of that number dead and a tenth rescued by authorities on the Island state of Tasmania. Experts believe all of the animals would have been part of one large group. Officials began working to rescue survivors among an estimated 270 whales found on Monday on a beach and two sandbars near the remote coastal town of Strahan. Then another 200 whales were spotted from a helicopter on Wednesday less than 10 kilometres (six miles) to the south. All 200 had been confirmed dead by late afternoon. They were among the 380 whales that have died overall, with estimates from earlier today suggesting that 30 that were alive but stranded and 50 had been rescued since Tuesday, Mr Deka, Wildlife Service manager explained. He added, “We’ll continue to work to free as many of the animals as we can. We’ll continue working as long as there are live animals.”

It is not known what caused the animals to run aground. While stranding events are not unheard of, they are very rare in such large numbers. About 30 whales in the original stranding were moved from the sandbars to open ocean on Tuesday, but several got stranded again. About a third of the first group had died by Monday evening.

Australia’s largest mass stranding had previously been 320 pilot whales near the Western Australian town of Dunsborough in 1996. This week’s incident is the first involving more than 500 whales in Tasmania since 2009. Marine Conservation Programme wildlife biologist Kris Carlyon said the latest mass stranding was the biggest in Australia in terms of numbers stranded and died.

Marine scientist Vanessa Pirotta said there were a number of potential reasons why whales might become beached, including navigational errors. She explained, “They do have a very strong social system; these animals are closely bonded and that’s why we have seen so many in this case unfortunately in this situation. Rescuing them does not always work, because they are wanting to return back to the group, they might hear the sounds that the others are making, or they’re just disoriented and, in this case, extremely stressed, and just probably so exhausted that they in some cases don’t know where they are.” she added.

It was a dark night. Thick, dark, gray clouds had made sure that there was no starlight or moonlight to greet me as I walked out on my porch. Still, I kept the porch light off because I didn’t want to be surrounded by bugs and moths (飞蛾) on this sticky summer evening. I stood there for a while letting my eyes adjust to the lack of light. My dog stood beside me waiting patiently for me to start her walk. It was then, though, that I saw them. First one blink of light at the far end of the meadow was followed by another and then another. I smiled. I recognized them at once as my firefly friends, who always showed up this time of the year.

I got so much joy watching them first as a child and then as an adult. They never became dull or boring and they always filled me with delight. When I was little I used to sit in the grass and watch them slowly fly around blinking on and off. I never caught and put one in a jar as some kids did because I was afraid I might kill it and I never wanted to hurt these messengers (信使) of light. Their time on this earth was so brief as it was. l tried to enjoy them each night they were here. It always saddened me when they disappeared in the fall and it always made my heart sing when they reappeared the next summer.

I think I enjoy these little fireflies so much because I can see that we are like them in a lot of ways. Our time here on earth is brief. Often our light and love are more like on and off blinks rather than a steady shine. Let’s share our light and love while we are here then.

Once the red wolf’s historic range stretched from Long Island to Missouri and down to the Texas-Mexico border. But by 1972 their population was reduced to a small area along the Gulf coast due to habitat loss and hunting.

To conserve the species, 14 individuals were caught as part of a reproducing program. In 1980 their wild relatives were declared extinct — the caught wolves were all that was left and thus lots of genetic variation was lost. You can’t help it when you have so few founders.

Kristin Brzeski is an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University, whose research focuses on the conservation of genetics of wild animal populations. He thought this work had been an underdog scientifically and for conservation, for all wolves decreased in amount dramatically, especially the red wolves. Now, Brzeski and her co-workers have found a surprising new pool of red wolf genes that might help bring more diversity to the tiny population: they found the disappearing genes of red wolves in wild coyote populations. But why did this happen?

Remember: when a population is dying out, it might find the closest related species as their own best mate, so a red wolf and a coyote can have offspring. As a result, people can rediscover their genes in their coyote hybrid offspring. As red wolves are released back into the wild, reproducing with these coyotes could help the critically endangered species regain some of its genetic diversity.

This would be kind of the opposite direction: take the existing small population that still has red wolf genes that are so critical, and put them into a wild landscape with new genetic variation that they haven’t seen for 50 years or more. And all of a sudden, hopefully, this is like a super mix of genetic health and sort of a rebound that these animals can be wild and be themselves again.

The next step will include how to release red wolves in a way that takes advantage of the genes red wolves hiding in coyote populations. There should be a philosophy in our mind that we created this problem, so we should be responsible for fixing it.