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Aug 10, 2009 11:59 pm US/Eastern
Beached Mother Whale Dies, Calf Euthanized
HOLLYWOOD (CBS4) ―
Dozens of beachgoers in Hollywood worked feverishly from keeping a pair of beaked whales -- a mother and her calf -- from stranding themselves on shore.
Their efforts could not rescue the beached mother whale who died Monday afternoon. That means its calf had to be euthanized because it cannot survive without its mother, said Blaire Mase of NOAA.
The whales were first spotted just before 1 p.m. when the larger one, approximately ten to twelve feet in length, tried to beach itself near Garfield Street, about five blocks north of Hollywood Boulevard.
Would be rescuers half steered, half carried it back toward the open the sea but it turned around immediately and swam back to the shore. Half a dozen men then surrounded it and steered it into waist deep water as they tried to keep it from going back to the shoreline. At one point, it swam a short ways out to sea and then began swimming in circles. It kept circling for several minutes before heading out to sea. It returned about half and hour later and again tried to beach itself.
NOAA Spokeswoman Connie Barclay said strandings aren't unusual in South Florida.
"We get about one or two beaked whale strandings a year," she said.
She added that there's a variety of reasons for whales to become stranded including illness or disorientation. Beaked whales are a protected species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. It means that they prohibit anyone from harming the marine mammal. Beaked whales, however, are not listed in the Endangered Species Act.
Chopper4 spotted a second smaller whale, only about 5 feet in length, about a quarter mile south of the first one. It, too, tried to beach itself several times was turned back into the open sea by beach goers.
Vanessa Lane, a spokeswoman for the Marine Animal Rescue Society, warned against pushing the sea mammals back into the water.
"Please don't push them back at sea. Just get the area clear around them. People are on the way out there. Do not push them back at sea. If it's safe to keep the blowhole area clear," she said. "There is always a risk when you're near a wild animal."
Blair Mase, a NOAA stranding coordinator, said they had no choice but to put down the six-month-old calf.
"It needs its mother to survive," said Mase. "We could try to attempt to mimic the diet of an adult beached whale. We may fail. Even if we got past that point, really we don't know have the skills needed to introduce a beaked whale into the wild."
Mase says between 200 and 300 whales beach themselves in Florida every year. She responds to a majority of calls, such as Monday's. On Tuesday she will perform a necropsy in hopes of determining why the whale was determined to swim ashore. Roughly 30 percent of the time she finds a reason.
For more information about beaked whales,
click here.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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