A whale of a rescue: Officials take 12 hours to save giant mammal

A 40-foot-long blue whale stranded in shallow waters along the Dapoli coast in the Konkan region was rescued by marine experts and locals.

A senior forest official said the mammal was stranded in three-feet shallow waters along the beach at Kolthare village in Dapoli tehsil of Ratnagiri district on February 1 and was rescued same day by the locals and marine experts.

Around 20-25 representatives of Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra, a Ratnagiri-based NGO working for nature conservation, took part in the rescue operation along with the forest officials and local fishermen.

After the recent incidents involving deaths of stranded whales, this is the first incident where one has been rescued, the IFS officer said.

Last week, a nearly 37-feet-long bryde’s whale, weighing 20 tonne, had died after being washed ashore to Juhu beach and was buried beyond the high tide line there.

Carcasses of 38 Baleen Whales were washed ashore recently near Tiruchendur beach in Tamil Nadu while more than 250 stranded whales were pushed back into the deep sea.

In June last year, a 42-feet-long blue whale was washed ashore at Revdanda coast, about 17 km south of Alibaug in neighbouring Raigad district. 

Image: Locals and officials rescued the whale from the shallow waters. Photograph courtesy Forest Department.