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Killer whale calf dies after third beaching
November 17, 1997
Web posted at: 2:59 p.m. EST (1959 GMT)EXMOUTH, Australia (CNN) -- A killer whale calf died and its mother was stranded for hours after they beached themselves for a third time Monday morning near Exmouth, in northwestern Australia.
The killer whales were part of a pod of seven that became stranded Sunday morning in a shallow, 6-mile (10-km) stretch of water along the Exmouth Gulf.
Two of the whales, one with considerable bite marks, died Sunday. Three more were successfully guided out to sea by Department of Conservation and Land Management officers and local volunteers.
But police said the mother and calf returned to the shallows after a first attempt to swim them off shore. They were then led out to sea again Sunday night. By Monday morning, they had beached themselves again.
"At first light I realized they'd been re-stranded, and they were both alive when I found them, about one kilometer (a half-mile) south of where they beached yesterday," Department of Conservation and Land Management district manager Doug Meyers said.
By 8 a.m., the calf had been reported dead. Officials plan to take tissue samples from its body to determine whether it died of stress, as believed.
Meanwhile, rescue workers did everything they could to save the mother. A bulldozer dug a trench for water to get in around the killer whale, and rescue workers covered her with wet cloths and hosed sea water on her to keep her wet and cool until the tide rose.
Conservation officers managed to refloat the mother whale at high tide around noon and send her back out to deeper water.
"Once a pod of whales have got into a grounding situation, they can defy any efforts to point them in the right direction," Myers said.
"It's a very difficult situation, and we don't know if this one will now resist efforts to deal with her," he said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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