'Impossible' to look after stranded baby humpback

bevans · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:18 pm

It is not physically possible to look after an abandoned humpback whale calf that is swimming alone and starving in Sydney's Pittwater, experts say.

- Days without food
- Grim prognosis
- Calf's 'desperate situation'

Different wildlife authorities are debating whether to euthanase a 4.5 metre baby humpback, which has been nicknamed Colin, rather than allow it to starve to death.

It is thought Colin may have a biological problem, which led his mother to abandon her calf.

The baby whale, believed to be about two to three weeks old, was first spotted on Sunday, nuzzling up to a yacht in an apparent search for its mother.

NSW National Parks and Wildlife spokesman John Dengate believes Colin has only days to live.

"It's really hard to know (how long he has)," he said today. "No one knows what his nutritional status was when he came into this area.

"(But) he's been here now for several days. Adults of course go for months without food but a calf ... you'd think it was days more than weeks," he told the Nine Network.

Expert vets, resuscitation groups and universities were currently assessing the baby whale's health but the prognosis was grim, Mr Dengate said.

"What they're all telling us is that it is not actually physically possible to look after a whale like this pretty much anywhere else, let alone in Australia," he said.

"It's looking like it's too big a mountain to climb," he said. "We're racking our brains ... But we need to be realistic about this."

The challenges involved with raising the mammal in captivity were immense.

"To look after this little whale, you need to suckle it for 11 months, that's never been done anywhere in the word before for a whale this size or for that long," he said.

"You then need to get it to the Antarctic where its food supply is.

"Letting it go off Sydney, it's got a 2,000km trip to make. It doesn't know how to avoid killer whales or how to find krill.

"There's a whole range of extremely serious problems with the idea of getting this little whale through to getting it released in the wild ...

"That's the advice we're getting from every single expert that we've spoken to," he said.

An expert vet from Seaworld was arriving in Sydney today to assess the whale.

Military equipment might also be used to help float the mammal, Mr Dengate said, but he added that options were "absolutely running out at this stage".

The whale was today "moving around fairly quietly, fairly calmly" but his condition, according to a vet, was "ok but deteriorating".

Baby Colin's plight has tugged at the heartstrings of Sydneysiders - and the world - with many frustrated that the calf was not being fed and that no concrete plans were being made for the humpback's future.

Federal Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said Colin had captured the imagination of all Australians.

"It's hard not to be sad when you see that calf in such a desperate situation," he told Macquarie Radio today.

"I've asked my department to look at any options that we might have to assist ... (but) we are yet to receive any advice that practically would be successful.

"Even getting it out to sea doesn't mean saving the whale," he said.

AAP

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Pressman · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:44 pm

Nature is a cruel task master

This is reality whether people like it or not

Cheers,
Tony
Still drying out the falcoon after the now imfamous creek incident!http://tony33.fotopic.net

PavlovsDog · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:05 pm

Mmmm, Colin with tartare sauce and chips; sounds good to me!

Pressman · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:20 pm

Hey, I thought the Japanese were doing research into whales?
They keep hunting them in the name of "scientific research"!
Surely they must know the chemical composition of whale milk.
Come on you Whale hunters .... now you can prove you are actually doing research for the good of the species, not just killing them for profit!

Are they up for the challenge?

Good Lord I'm sounding like a greeny, someone slap some sense into me quickly!

Cheers,
Tony
Still drying out the falcoon after the now imfamous creek incident!http://tony33.fotopic.net

Bwana · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:52 pm

Why is it that it is so easy to say euthenasia is the only answer for an animal, and yet it is immeasurably wrong to propose it for a human?

I am SO moving to Victoria Street!!

Check out my pics at http://bwana.fotopic.net

Edith · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:09 pm

thelastname · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:23 pm

Won't Japan love this if we kill it. Confused

simont141 · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:56 pm

I wonder if this story would have been published if it was a sloth that lost it's mother? highly doubt it, because those and other animals that aren't "cute" or the like just don't count.

Simon

www.prr.org.au

8050 · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:26 pm

Who cares!! Shocked

Its a bloody whale fer christ sake.
A single bloody whale.
Its the way things have been for 1000's of years so why worry.
Just let it die, it will be food for plenty of sharks and fish.

BTW we are spending so much energy and time on this single doomed whale whilst we done nothing when the Japs slaughtered 100's.

TE2815 · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:53 pm

As mentioned by an emailer to Sunrise, how many other calfs have died during the annual migration but happen at sea or in the deeper water so we never see it. This is nature let it do its own thing, we are only renting this planet we don't own it or the other creatures on it.

Redundant Area Controller (anyone got a job going Question

)

dalts 1985 wrote:

(No offence intended to TE 2815 by the way with that comment/remark as TE2815 is one of the "old hands" & more knowledgeable blokes as shown in many a post/contribution")

Siderodromophobia- Fear of trains, railroads or train travel.
My fotopic site

8050 · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:42 pm

gboaf · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:16 pm

JD is right, it was always going to be a tough ask to help this poor animal - and even worse if we do, it'll be dependant on humans for its survival.

It's a very sad thing to happen - but such is the way nature works.

My aircraft photos on airliners.net (opens in new window)

johnboy · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 10:15 am

A lot of fuss over one animal. But we let the Japanese slaughter thousands....

oh that's right... our government vocally protests the Japanese... whilst they still buy Sony TV's and Toyota motorcars at the same time.

Warks · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 10:30 am

What if it happened to be an abandoned rat pup?

What if it happened to be orphaned children in Darfur?

What if it happened out at sea where no one witnessed it?

There are many questions, but so few answers.

Sometimes I feel like a pelican. Which ever way I look there's an enormous bill in front of me. Blackadder.

8050 · Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 12:15 pm

They euthanised it today.
What a waste of money.