Neil, a 2,200-pound elephant seal, has returned to his birthplace on the Australian coast, causing quite a stir.

Authorities revised up the number of pilot whales rescued from Australia's worst-ever mass stranding from 50 to 70 on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020, as the focus shifted to removing 380 carcasses from Tasmania state shallows. (Patrick Gee/Pool Photo via AP)CANBERRA – Authorities revised up the number of pilot whales rescued from Australia’s worst mass stranding from 50 to 70 on Thursday, as the focus shifted to removing 380 carcasses from Tasmania state shallows. Carlyon said some of the first whales rescued on Tuesday had beached again, but those guided back to sea on Wednesday appeared to have not returned. Australia’s largest mass stranding had previously been 320 pilot whales near the Western Australia state town of Dunsborough in 1996. Tasmania’s previous largest mass stranding involved 294 whales on the northwest coast in 1935.

HOBART – More pilot whales were found stranded on an Australian coast Wednesday, raising the total to almost 500 in the largest mass stranding ever recorded in the island state of Tasmania. Another 200 stranded whales were spotted from the air on Wednesday less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) to the south, Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service Manager Nic Deka said. About 30 whales in the original stranding were moved from the sandbars to open ocean but several got stranded again, Deka said. It is the first involving more than 50 whales in Australia’s southernmost state since 2009. “In Tasmania, this is the biggest (mass stranding) we’ve recorded,” Marine Conservation Program wildlife biologist Kris Carlyon said.

Around one third of an estimated 270 pilot whales that became stranded on Australia's island state of Tasmania had died as rescuers managed to return 25 to the sea in an ongoing operation. (Brodie Weeding/Pool Photo via AP)HOBART – Around one third of an estimated 270 pilot whales that became stranded on Australia’s island state of Tasmania have died, with rescuers managing to return 25 to the sea in an ongoing operation, officials said Tuesday. About one third of the whales had died by Monday night and most were inaccessible by boat, Carlyon said. He also said that pilot whales are a robust species and the survivors have a chance of lasting several days if the weather stays cool. Authorities do not know why the whales became stranded.