THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602090437
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OREGON INLET LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
Scientists who spent the past three days trying to figure out how to get a 40-foot fin whale off a Pamlico Sound sandbar now have another problem: What do you do with its 40-ton body?
Freddy the fin whale died between 6 p.m. Wednesday and 11:30 a.m. Thursday after struggling for three days in three feet of water west of this Outer Banks inlet.
Coast Guard crews who went to check on the agonizing struggle Thursday found the whale with its mouth open and its head bobbing in the waves, a few feet south of where they left it Wednesday night.
The body is still stuck on its stomach about 2.5 miles west of the Oregon Inlet bridge. But within a few days, biologists said, the whale will become bloated as its body fills with gas.
Then, the whale will start floating.
``That's when it will become a problem,'' said National Marine Fisheries Service spokesman Bill McLellan, who oversees the Large Whale Mortality Program and pronounced Freddy dead Thursday. ``When the whale gets gaseous, it will start bobbing. It's not gonna stay where it is. It's so big, it could become a hazard to navigation if it drifts out near the channel.''
The 3- to 5-year-old fin whale, whom Coast Guardsmen named Freddy although they didn't know its sex, has attracted national media attention since duck hunters discovered it thrashing on a sandbar Monday afternoon. Coast Guardsmen visited the animal two or three times a day to check on its condition. Well-wishers from Maryland to South Carolina called to offer ideas for rescuing Freddy.
And scientists from across the country convened via conference calls to discuss scenarios for saving the whale.
Thursday morning, a Navy veterinarian from San Diego and a marine mammal expert from Miami were scheduled to fly in to see Freddy. McLellan said he diverted them en route after finding Freddy dead. But he plans to keep in contact with biologists across the country until National Marine Fisheries Service experts decide what to do with the whale.
``We're going to try to do a necropsy - that's an autopsy on an animal,'' McLellan said. ``But we're in a bind with this whale because it's almost impossible to do anything while it's still in the water. I'd like to see if we can't move it, now that it's dead, to the beach or to land where I can get at it better. Doing anything with asuper-large whale is a problem, though. This isn't an elephant-sized animal we're talking about moving. It's at least as big as a tractor trailer.''
McLellan wants to dissect the whale to collect tissue, bone and organ samples. If crews can't move the animal onto land, McLellan said he'll probably ``fillet'' it with a special knife and at least remove the organs. He would also cut it up a bit, he said, to expedite the decomposition process - because a dead whale left in the shallow sound soon will begin to stink.
``If we have to leave it there, I'll at least open it up to let the water start washing around in it,'' McLellan said. ``Eventually, it would deteriorate on its own. But there's a lot of crab food in that carcass.
``I predict that when I do get to look into it, this animal will have some massive kidney damage from parasites.''
Until scientists can slice up and study the whale, they won't know why it lost its way in the Atlantic and wound up in such shallow water. Some marine mammal experts say whales beach themselves to die. But Freddy seemed to be fighting for his life until the end.
``Everyone wanted to see that whale free himself and swim back to the ocean where he'd be safe,'' Coast Guard spokesman Brandon Brewer said. ``But at least now, Freddy's out of his misery. It was kind of a shock, though. We'd all come to care for him. And everyone was pulling for him - hard.''
Too far from a deep channel to dig out, too heavy to airlift and too sick to tow, the whale was virtually un-rescuable.
Well-wishers were were hoping tides would rise and float Freddy back to sea. But by Thursday morning, scientists were considering euthanizing the animal to spare it any additional suffering.
Frank Hudgins, curator at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, said a 5-foot-long needle would have been needed.
Brewer and McLellan said they were glad Freddy expired without human help.
``I wasn't surprised, really, when we found it dead this morning,'' said McLellan. ``I felt pretty bad. But there just wasn't a lot we could do for this animal. We sure would've liked to help it.
``But I was sort of happily relieved - for the animal - that it's no longer suffering.'' ILLUSTRATION: DREW C. WILSON/ The Virginian-Pilot
Videographer Jeff Myers gets a last shot of Freddy Wednesday. The
whale died later, after three days stranded on a sand bar.
Graphic NO COMMERCIAL VALUE
The national Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits anyone from
removing or selling any parts of a whale - even one that died of
natural causes. Only authorized people are allowed to get close to
the whale. Freddy's carcass has no commercial value.
by CNB