Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 21, 1990 TAG: 9006210461
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B8 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium
A whale found Wednesday on the beach in Sandbridge was put to death after a veterinarian determined it was too ill to survive. Another humpback was already dead when it was found Tuesday at Chesapeake Beach.
"In our records, we've not had a stranding since 1984," said Lee Morgan, a marine biologist for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Morgan said scientists from the Smithsonian Institution would review blood and tissue samples taken from the whales.
The whale found Wednesday was breathing and barely opening its left eye at times. Vacationers, police and beachcombers volunteered buckets of water, wet shirts and towels to help keep the animal's soft, gray skin wet and protected from the sun.
The whale, estimated to be about 27 feet long, was almost identical in age and size to the other humpback.
Morgan speculated the juvenile whales could have been "stragglers" from groups of humpbacks that migrate each spring from the Caribbean to waters off New England.
Thomas Pitchford, an exhibit technician for the Virginia Marine Science Museum, said the whale in Sandbridge was discovered at about 7:30 a.m. by construction crews building a sea wall.
At midmorning, Pitchford was monitoring the whale's breathing. The animal was taking about six breaths every five minutes.
At one point, more than 40 people formed a "bucket brigade" in the surf and passed buckets of saltwater hand-to-hand toward the beach so the water could be sprayed onto the whale to keep it moist.
Shortly before noon, however, Gloucester veterinarian Robert H. George, an adjunct professor for VIMS, determined the whale was too sick to save.
by CNB