More whales stranded

By Carla Allen

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

Federal fishery officers are having a whale of a problem in Yarmouth County with the stranding of yet more of the sea creatures.

On Tuesday, Dec. 22 eight officers from Meteghan and Tusket returned a lone whale back to the sea at Port Maitland.

Shortly after, they received a report of three more whales stranded on a beach near the Yarmouth/Digby County line in Beaver River.

One whale was declared dead, another was returned to the ocean and the third, estimated at weighing close to a ton, was heaved upright and banked with stones in the hope that it would return to sea on the high tide. That whale died overnight. Another juvenile whale that tried to beach while officers were there was redirected before it landed.

On Wednesday the Department of Fisheries and Oceans received another report of six whales stranded on Bartletts Beach, a short distance from where the previous strandings had occurred. “They put two back, one they couldn’t move, it was bigger than the one we couldn’t move yesterday,” said Howard Blinn, supervisor of the Fisheries and Oceans Meteghan office.

Officers from Digby assisted the Meteghan and Tusket officers in banking remaining living whales with stones to help restore their equilibrium.

A local resident reported finding a dead whale on Port Maitland beach Wednesday afternoon with a bullet hole in it. “It certainly wasn’t us,” said Blinn.

Earlier this spring, Cape Town police shot 55 stranded false killer whales in South Africa, despite the frantic rescue efforts of hundreds of volunteers.

The exhausted whales were destroyed to end their suffering, while some died of stress and organ failure

Claude Perreault, a fishery officer with the Meteghan office, was heading to Bartletts Beach Thursday morning to assess the situation with Andrew Reid, a coordinator with the Marine Animal Response Society.

He says putting the animals out of their misery would be a last resort. “That has been talked about as a possibility,” he said. “If we can’t find a way to get them back into the water and they are still alive and the chances are very slim, euthanasia is probably the most humane way of taking care of it at that point. It’s not what any of us want. I know that the public would have mixed feelings on this, but what do you do? Do you let an animal suffer indefinitely? Someone at some point has to make a decision,” said Perreault.

More training is in the works for stranding situations, he added. “Some of the officers have received training, but most have not. It’s not a regular occurrence for us,” he said.

Many officers, however, have received a whale dis-entanglement course. “We’re going to be taking a greater role when it comes to re-floating whales that have beached themselves or trying to release whales that have gotten tangled in fishing gear. “The officers care a lot about these animals and we want to do our best to have them survive and get them back in the water. There’s no apathy with regard to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans when it comes to saving these animals,” he said.

Perreault says there are several reasons behind the whales’ drive to strand themselves. “Mis-navigation could be one. Another reason is it could be a diseased animal or an illness and the others are looking for it and they end up on the beach also. “They travel in pods and are very gregarious, a bit like humans.”

Fishery officers were continuing to monitor the situation Thursday morning.

SEE MORE COVERAGE ON THE WHALE STRANDINGS IN THE COUNTY OF YARMOUTH VANGUARD SECTION