Tasmanian Parks & Wild Life Service have been in a race against time to save 500 pilot whales stranded off Macquarie Harbour.

How many have been saved? How do you rescue a beached whale? And how much can science tell us about what causes mass strandings?

Reporter Jeremy Nadel spoke to Dr Emma Betty (Cetacean Ecology Research Group) and Eddie Staier (Tasmanian Parks & Wild Life Service) to answer these questions.