Wildlife rangers will Wednesday begin shooting 90 dolphins stranded on a remote Australian beach, saying the stressed creatures would be euthanised after attempts to refloat them failed.

A pod of 157 dolphins from a poorly understood deep-sea species was found stranded Tuesday evening on an isolated beach in Australia's southern island of Tasmania.

Tasmania's environment department said only 90 survived by Wednesday afternoon, growing increasingly "stressed" the longer they were exposed to beaming sun and lashing winds.

"Following expert veterinary assessment we have made the decision to euthanise the animals," incident controller Shelley Graham told reporters.

"That's likely to be the course of action for all 90."

They appeared to be........

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