A massive rescue effort is still underway in Western Australia to refloat 46 surviving pilot whales after a pod of 97 whales beached themselves yesterday.

Marine scientist at Macquarie University, Dr Vanessa Pirotta says the behaviour of the whales in the days leading up to the event was uncommon.

“They’re largely off-shore species, they’re not usually found in shallow waters like that … I thought … ‘well these are pilot whales, could this be pre-stranding behaviour and unfortunately I was absolutely right,'” she told Jacqui Felgate.

Press PLAY to hear rescue efforts for whales in ‘mystery’ mass-stranding event continues as over half die

Image: Nine News.