Sad end to whale tale

(c) BDMLR

The Northern Bottlenose whale whose plight captured the hearts of the nation lost its' struggle for survival last night. Despite the sterling efforts of our colleagues at British Divers Marine Life Rescue, the whale sadly died en route to the planned release site.

Public concern for the welfare of this animal was great, and the Marine Connection received countless telephone calls over the past few days, many supportive but some accusing the rescue effort of being lax and not doing all that was possible for the whale. We would like to assure the public that the co-ordinators of the rescue effort BDMLR, have many years experience in the field of marine mammal rescue and release and are experts in the field.

We hope that the public are now aware, having seen the rescue effort taking place, that this takes an immense amount of pre-planning which is not evident to the public at large. Firstly the animals' general appearance has to be assessed carefully as to whether there are any initial signs of illness. If this is not evident, then we presume we are dealing with a healthy animal and have to take steps to ensure its' protection from boat traffic which may cause stress, and hope that it will simply find its own way back to the open ocean rather than subject the animal to the stress of capture. If after a period this is not the case, consideration has to be given to assisting the animal, however we have to bear in mind that the animal in question may have some internal illness or another disease that may endanger other wild cetaceans (whales, dolphins or porpoises).

Over the weekend it became evident that the whale was perhaps going to strand, therefore the action plan was put into operation to ensure the, now exhausted whale, was assisted as quickly as possible. When the animal did strand rescuers immediately reacted and the whale was guided into a set or rescue pontoons, specially designed for marine mammal rescue. The whale was then "towed" slowly between two inflatables to a barge where it was lowered onto the deck, to enable the a closer examination by Dr Paul Jepson, veterinary pathologist and head of the Marine Mammal Strandings Programme to be carried out.

In these situations, if the animal is found to be ill a decision has to be made whether it is better to euthanise the animal to save any further suffering, however in this instance initial assessments showed the whale was a candidate for release, and it was decided to take the animal to deeper water to effect a release. However, en-route the whales' state deteriorated and it sadly died a short way from the release site, which was a very distressing outcome for all involved in this rescue effort.

A Post Mortem examination will now be carried out by Dr Jepson on the whale (a sexually immature female), and initial findings will be released at a press conference scheduled for this Wednesday, 25 January, which will be attended by Dr Jepson and the directors of British Divers Marine Life Rescue. We will post updates as soon as these are available.

For every successful rescue and release there are, unfortunately, others for whom the outcome is not what we all wish for. This animal may have been subject to an internal disease or even perhaps injury via military sonar, however only the final post mortem results will clarify the exact cause of death.

The Marine Connection would like to take this opportunity to thank all at British Divers Marine Life Rescue and others involved in the rescue and monitoring effort who worked tirelessly over the past few days in an attempt to save the life of this whale. We are honoured to have taken part in this attempt, and only wish the outcome could have been happier for all concerned.