Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Well, it seems that the bottle nosed whale that swam up the Thames died of dehydration, muscle damage and loss of kidney function. Poor thing. It was an eleven year old female, just a youngster. She must have been terrified. This makes me so sad. The theory goes that whales sometimes take a wrong turn around the northern headlands of Scotland when migrating, and end up in the North Sea rather than the Atlantic. They then try to correct their course by heading west, and sometimes this leads them up rivers. Poor girl was only trying to find her way back to her family. As whales get their water from the food they eat, and as there wasn’t much to feed a whale in the Thames, she became dehydrated. I feel so sad about all this, but I know that even if the rescue had been a success she would only have swam back upriver. Had they been able to fly her overland and released her off the West coast into the Atlantic then it would likely have been success, so maybe it’s better this way.
On a brighter note, I heard that the watering can that was used to keep her wet is likely to sell (if it hasn’t already) for £15,000, with the money going to the British Divers Marine Life Rescue.
