Nearly 100 pilot whales have died in a mass stranding on the Chatham Islands, New Zealand's Department of Conservation said Wednesday.

A marine biologist at the Marine and Freshwater Research institute who specializes in whales says that it’s rare for pilot whales to venture so far north, but said that it’s possible that the pilot whales' appearance in Iceland’s waters can be credited to warming ocean temperatures.

The first right whale of the season has been spotted in Canadian waters after an unprecedented winter in which not a single calf was spotted.