How do they save a beached whale? A complex operation involving hundreds of hands (8 photos)

Perhaps you have had the chance to participate in rescuing a homeless or wild animal. But hardly any of you have ever saved a beached whale, this is too rare an event.





The rescue operation is in full swing.

First of all, of course, you need to call your local authorities: the police or the regional wildlife protection service. An event of such a scale needs to be recorded. And you are unlikely to be able to save the whale on your own. The pygmy right whale is the smallest baleen whale on the planet, weighing from 3 tons. Helping even such a "baby" requires significant resources. Therefore, it is important to involve those who can provide you with them.



Even if you gather all your friends, you will not be able to pull this off.

While professional help is on the way, you have an important task: to make sure that the whale waits for it. Usually, rescuers give clear instructions on what can and cannot be done while they are on their way. You should never deviate from the algorithm! This can cost the animal its life!





Someone needs artificial respiration, and whales need artificial ablution!

All the advice is similar in one thing: do not let the whale dry out! Although the ancestors of cetaceans were purely land animals, those times are long gone. Whale skin allows moisture to pass through well, so even giants can dry out before your eyes. Usually, all those helping are sent around the area to collect buckets and canisters in which you can carry water for washing the whale. Volunteers wet the skin over the entire area. The only exception is the whale's blowhole. Water should not be poured there.

If equipment arrives at the site of a whale disaster, another opportunity to moisten the whale appears - to dig a trench between the water's edge and the animal. Life-giving moisture will gush straight from the sea and improve the whale's well-being.



Without human help, small whales live on land for no more than 12 hours.

In addition to watering, other methods of cooling and moisturizing whale skin are also used. For example, whales are covered with wet burlap. In the wild, they almost never encounter direct sunlight, so they have no protection from ultraviolet radiation. Animals get sunburned faster than us! Improvised clothing not only moistens the skin, but also protects the victim from the sun. You need to wrap almost the entire body, except for the breathing holes, mouth and fins.



We are buying time until the main rescue forces arrive.

When the rescuers arrive at the scene, the operation moves to the next phase: delivering the animal back to the water. And here, too, there are plenty of nuances. If the whale is small, and you have a hundred or two volunteers, then you can simply push it back to the sea. But, as a rule, it is impossible to solve such a problem on the fly. A disoriented and frightened animal actively resists attempts to pull it somewhere. In this state, it easily injures both itself and others.



Sometimes whales get stuck in hard-to-reach places. Only heavy equipment can help here.

Therefore, each rescue operation turns into a complex engineering task in which people have to proceed from the dimensions and condition of the animal, as well as take into account the available equipment. Having estimated dozens of variables (usually estimated by eye), the animal is wrapped in fishing nets and carefully pulled towards the sea. Moreover, anything can be used as a tractor - from construction equipment to an oil trawler sailing by.



This whale has a chance to survive!

In general, the science of rescuing large aquatic mammals is very complex and does not always give the desired results. For example, in the fall of 2020, 480 pilot whales washed up on the shores of Australia. People managed to save only 100 animals.



That same operation to save the pilot whales.