London Whale

[bobco]

This is ongoing at the moment over here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4633878.stm

The organisation running the rescue is the British Divers Marine life Rescue, all volunteers, and superb effort from a great bunch.

Hope it makes it

Bobco

 

[scuba4321]

Reminds me when is was in the Coast Guard in Long Island in early 1990's we delt with a lost pilot whale, worked with the Okinous Foundation (sp) together we got the coney island to take it in temp until it could be released. Funtimes

 

[Starstruck*]

Weird how its a bottle nose whale, usualy found in the north-west of scotland but still a very rare find, last sighting of this whale was in 1930 showing just how rare these things are. Their diet is mainly small fish and squid, so coming into the thames and around the uk is extremely abnormal. Hope the critter gets returned safely.

 

[skippy77]

i want to no how the poor thing did not die in the thames very dirty place and i belive it is being transported back to the atlantic

 

[miketsp]

Unfortunately it did just die 2 hours after being winched out. Stress, lack of food and too long in fresh water.
The Thames is not that dirty nowadays.

 

[DavidPT40]

How does a whale starve to death, they have tons of energy reserves (blubber)?

 

[Mr.X]

How does a whale starve to death, they have tons of energy reserves (blubber)?

I'm pretty sure they'll be conducting a necropsy to ascertain proximal causes of death. It'll be interesting to see what they discover. Give it about a week to two weeks. A necropsy of Poco the Beluga revealed some interesting bits of data.

For those note familiar with Poco - http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/press_release/2004/news04.17.htm

 

[bobco]

Just an update to the post,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4636278.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4637918.stm

 

[Kim]

According to the Natural History museum it was the only whale of this species that was ever sighted in the Thames. What is probably the most worrying is how it got so lost it ended up there. If ocean currents really start shifting about it will be more than the whales who end up with problems.

 

[Starstruck*]

It has been said that a possible reason for such a whale ending up the thames was the military testing in uk waters. I am unsure of what these were, but this is a factor they are investigating