Rescuers Tried to Save Beached Humpback Whale, Brazil
Rescue workers try to push a humpback whale that had became stranded back out to sea at Geriba beach in Buzios, 192 kilometers (119 miles) from Rio de Janeiro, October 26, 2010. The whales migrate north from Antarctica to mate from July to November off the coast of Brazil.
Photo Source Sergio Moraes, REUTERS
By The West Australian, AAP
A 25-tonne humpback whale which beached itself near Rio de Janeiro this week, sparking desperate rescue attempts involving a tugboat, died on Wednesday, officials said.
Firemen said the animal succumbed at dawn, just before an operation to try to tow it out to sea using a vessel on loan from Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras.
Photo Source Sergio Moraes, REUTERS
It had gone aground on a beach in the town of Buzios, 180 kilometres from Rio on Monday. On Tuesday, dozens of tourists turned out to help firemen use rags to wet the skin of the 12-metre whale.
Brazil’s Humpback Whale Institute said it was the 90th whale this year to have beached itself in Brazil, a record.
An old photo of fire department members and sea biologists trying to rescue a whale from the Rio Branco beach in Jurujuba, Niteroi, 30 km of Rio de Janeiro, 09 August 2004. The whale swam aground on 08 August weighing 10 tons and measuring 10 metres.
Last year, 30 such cases were registered. In 2007, there were 43.
Beached humpbacks, which can weigh up to 40 tonnes, “are hard to move and suffer from elevated temperatures that can dehydrate them and cause burns,” the institute’s director, Milton Marcondes, said.
Outside of water, the weight of the whales can also press down on internal organs and make breathing difficult, he explained.
Marcondes speculated that the beaching might have been caused by a seven to 10 per cent increase in the humpback whale population, or maybe from wounds from fishing nets, or illness, or climate change.
