Poor bubby :(
Aug. 20th, 2008 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krazykitkatIt's such a gorgeous little (relatively speaking) thing. More stories, photos and videos at SMH. They're consulting with whale experts from around the world, but it doesn't look like there's much that can be done. They've estimated it's only 2-3 weeks old.
A lost baby humpback whale - weak, hungry and desperate to find its mother - has reportedly been trying to suckle another boat in Pittwater this morning.
The young calf, apparently abandoned by its mother, was first spotted on Monday in the Pittwater area nuzzling up to a whale-sized yacht that it had apparently mistaken it for its mother.
Authorities lured the baby out to sea on Monday, but it had returned to Mackerel Beach, in Pittwater, by the next morning.
This morning, a man found the whale trying to suckle on his boat at The Basin, near Palm Beach.
"I've got a baby whale suckling my boat," the man, Peter, said on 702 ABC Sydney this morning.
"I've been sailing back from Port Stephens and came in late last night and woke up this morning to a strange sucking sound at the bottom of the boat.
"It sounds quite pathetic ... like someone with a great vacuum cleaner trying to suck the bottom of the boat."
The man said he had not been aware there was a lost baby whale in the area.
He had moored his boat at The Basin while he tried to contact the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, he said.
"I just didn't want to start the boat or do anything to hurt the whale."
Authorities have said the baby has just days to live, as it was incapable of surviving without mother's milk for long.
On Monday it was coaxed out to sea in an area where there had been other whales. However, the calf had either been unable to make contact with the whales or they had not been interested in it, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service spokesman John Dengate said yesterday.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service had investigated options of caring for the whale in captivity, including feeding it a formula, but none were feasible, Mr Dengate said yesterday.
"If it was smaller, perhaps, but this is too big and too specialised in its nutritional needs."
Mr Dengate refuted reports that there were plans to euthanase the whale.
"It's absolutely the case that we haven't given up on this little whale," he said.
The baby whale would most likely have been contacting other pods of whales that were travelling up and down the coast, as whales could communicate up to 10 kilometres under water, he said.
However the prognosis was grim, he said, as it looked unlikely the whale's mother would return or that another lactating adult whale would adopt it.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service had investigated options to care for the whale in captivity, but there were no facilities in Australia capable of caring for a baby whale for 11 months - the period it suckles - and providing it with its nutritional needs, he said.
A lost baby humpback whale - weak, hungry and desperate to find its mother - has reportedly been trying to suckle another boat in Pittwater this morning.
The young calf, apparently abandoned by its mother, was first spotted on Monday in the Pittwater area nuzzling up to a whale-sized yacht that it had apparently mistaken it for its mother.
Authorities lured the baby out to sea on Monday, but it had returned to Mackerel Beach, in Pittwater, by the next morning.
This morning, a man found the whale trying to suckle on his boat at The Basin, near Palm Beach.
"I've got a baby whale suckling my boat," the man, Peter, said on 702 ABC Sydney this morning.
"I've been sailing back from Port Stephens and came in late last night and woke up this morning to a strange sucking sound at the bottom of the boat.
"It sounds quite pathetic ... like someone with a great vacuum cleaner trying to suck the bottom of the boat."
The man said he had not been aware there was a lost baby whale in the area.
He had moored his boat at The Basin while he tried to contact the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, he said.
"I just didn't want to start the boat or do anything to hurt the whale."
Authorities have said the baby has just days to live, as it was incapable of surviving without mother's milk for long.
On Monday it was coaxed out to sea in an area where there had been other whales. However, the calf had either been unable to make contact with the whales or they had not been interested in it, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service spokesman John Dengate said yesterday.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service had investigated options of caring for the whale in captivity, including feeding it a formula, but none were feasible, Mr Dengate said yesterday.
"If it was smaller, perhaps, but this is too big and too specialised in its nutritional needs."
Mr Dengate refuted reports that there were plans to euthanase the whale.
"It's absolutely the case that we haven't given up on this little whale," he said.
The baby whale would most likely have been contacting other pods of whales that were travelling up and down the coast, as whales could communicate up to 10 kilometres under water, he said.
However the prognosis was grim, he said, as it looked unlikely the whale's mother would return or that another lactating adult whale would adopt it.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service had investigated options to care for the whale in captivity, but there were no facilities in Australia capable of caring for a baby whale for 11 months - the period it suckles - and providing it with its nutritional needs, he said.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-20 01:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-20 03:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-20 02:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-20 03:28 pm (UTC)But just reading some of the responses on the SMH blog about it, there's a lot of stupid people. Demanding NPWS feeds it...with what exactly? They probably don't even know the make up of humpback milk, and synthetic or other animal's milk would probably kill it. And if you managed to raise it, then what? A humpback has never been raised in captivity.
I'm sad about it, but at least I'm realistic. If they don't find another whale to adopt in the next day or two, it should be put down.