Sad story of baby humpback whale comes to an end

15 August 2010

Following the appearance of a dead whale off the coast of St Ives at the weekend, and an examination of the body on the beach, marine mammal research and rescue teams now believe that it is that of a young humpback whale they had been monitoring off Godrevy last month. British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) had been watching over the whale when it was first seen close to a navigation buoy.

"It seemed to be attracted to the buoy as if it thought it was its mother", says Dave Jarvis, BDMLR coordinator for Cornwall. "We went out every few hours in our boat to monitor it and noticed that the wave action on the buoy caused a sound a bit like a whale's 'blow', when it exhales air, and wondered if the baby thought that was another whale. It was nuzzling the buoy like it was trying to feed from it. It was very thin and lethargic and obviously starving. We remained stationery and it kept coming up under our boat as it would under its mother. It was heartbreaking really."

The team watched over the six metre long whale until it disappeared on the 31^st July and was not seen again until a body was spotted by Tim Bain of BDMLR on Sunday, floating off Hayle.

The Cornwall Wildlife Trust Marine Strandings Network (MSN) had been on alert, expecting the bad news, and the team joined BDMLR to watch the movement of the whale's body in St Ives bay over the course of the day, waiting for it to strand on one of the beaches so that they could examine it. Unfortunately, late on Sunday evening, the dead whale became caught up in the winch line for the power cable that had been laid for the wave hub, which is being sited off the north coast of Cornwall. BDMLR alerted the deployment vessel, the Nordica, to the problem and they sent out a boat to free the whale from the line and tow it offshore, as it was not safe for them to try to beach it. The next evening, the whale was brought ashore and the MSN team went out to examine and record it.

BDMLR Operations Manager Stephen Marsh said, "Humpbacks have incredibly long pectoral fins that are a third of the length of the body, and the remains of the dorsal fin on its back is a similar shape to the one viewed off the buoy. It’s too much of a coincidence for it not to be the same one, but we needed to be a bit cautious." After a closer examination, the animal was confirmed to be the young whale.

"We've never had a humpback whale strand in Cornwall before" said Caroline Curtis, duty Strandings Hotline coordinator, "and were waiting for the whale to strand so that we could take some samples from it for research. At least then we could learn something from this very sad outcome that might help us understand humpback whales better."

The body of the whale is very decomposed, and the public are strongly advised not to go near it. "It is extremely putrid by now and very smelly" says Jan Loveridge, Marine Strandings Network coordinator, "and could certainly pose a health risk to anyone who touches it. When the fin whale stranded earlier this year on the north coast, we saw members of the public allowing their children to climb on it and some people even took bones away. We should remind everyone that it's illegal to do this without a licence and they could be prosecuted. But more importantly they could become infected from contact with any marine animal carcass as they can carry diseases, so the public should give it a very wide berth."

"Our team is authorised and trained to take samples for our colleagues at the Institute of Zoology, and others researching large whales," continues Jan, "and if DNA can be extracted, it may even be possible to trace which population the whale came from. Now that we've had a closer look at it, we believe that it may have been maternally dependent and must have became separated from its mother while they were on their migration route to their feeding grounds. If that's the case, there would have been nothing anyone could do to help it, as it would still be suckling from Mum and unable to feed itself."

Humpback whales follow a vast migration route from their breeding grounds in the tropics to their feeding grounds in the North Atlantic. A single calf is born every two to three years and measures about 4.5 to 5 metres long. Adult males can reach up to 15 metres long and females up to 16 metres, although the average is shorter. There are thought to be only around 8,000 - 10,000 in the North Atlantic, where they feed on small, schooling fish such as herring and mackerel.

The public are urged to report any live-stranded marine animals they come across to BDMLR on 01825 765546 and any dead stranded animals to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust Marine Strandings Network on their Hotline: 0845 201 2626.