Wildlife rangers will Wednesday begin shooting 90 dolphins stranded on a remote Australian beach after attempts to refloat them failed.

Dozens of dolphins have died after a pod of more than 150 stranded on a remote beach in Australia's southern island of Tasmania, environment officials said Wednesday.A pod of 157 dolphins from a poorly understood deep-sea species was believed to have stranded in the past 48 hours -- with "approximately 90" still alive as of Wednesday morning.

Department liaison officer Brendon Clark said the stranding was the first by false killer whales in Tasmania in since 1974. That was a pod of more than 160 whales that landed on a beach near Stanley on the northwest coast. Strandings in Tasmania are usually pilot whales.