Sunday, January 17, 2010

Whale dies trying to save her baby


IT has been revealed that a whale found beached on the Yorke Peninsula has died two days after its baby.

Deb Kelly from the Department of Environment and Heritage said fisheries were unable to save the whale - believed to be a beaked whale - found beached in shallow waters near Point Turton this morning.

She said a baby whale was found dead after it beached itself on Tuesday and an adult whale was seen in water very close to the beach on the inside of the reef.

"Whales don't give up on their babies very easily and there is a good chance the adult was there because it wanted to help it,'' she said.

A fisheries officer had herded the adult whale to the outside of the reef, in the hope it would swim out to sea and not come back in.

Dr Kelly said the whale had sustained lacerations on its belly after trying to "climb over the reef' to get back to the baby.

Jim Harris from Glenelg who is holidaying in the area, earlier told AdelaideNow that the whale - believed to be a beak whale was stranded on a reef at Parsons Beach yesterday, but was found beached in shallow waters at Point Turton this morning.

It is understood the whale's baby died after being beached at Parsons Beach yesterday.

Parsons Beach is about 30km from Point Turton.

"There were two beached whales in the area yesterday and Fisheries officers managed to get this whale off the reef yesterday and they thought it was fine and now it has beached itself again this morning," Mr Harris said.

"It's a bit sad.

"There are about 30 people at the beach looking at it."

Mr Harris said the whale is about 4.5m in length.

Authorities from PIRSA are heading to the beach to determine why the whale died


Article from: The Advertiser

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