Everyone wanted a happy ending, but it was not to be. A starving humpback whale calf that had lost its mother and was trying to suckle from yachts in waters off Sydney was put down yesterday, as authorities decided that it would not have survived on its own.
The decision was taken by veterinarians and members of various government agencies after the condition of the female calf, believed to be one or two months' old, deteriorated rapidly. Angry local people, who had hoped to save the whale by feeding it artificially, shouted "Shame!" as veterinarians administered a sedative in shallow waters.
The 14ft mammal could be seen thrashing about before it quietened. Workers were able to hoist it on to a tarpaulin and drag it towards a closed tent on the beach where a final lethal injection was administered.
The plight of the young mammal had attracted a huge outpouring of sympathy as it roamed between yachts moored in an inlet off Sydney's northern shores for the past week, with efforts to save it ranging from the practical to the fanciful.
Attempts to lure the calf out to sea in the hope that it would have been adopted by a passing pod of whales were unsuccessful, as it turned back and continued its fruitless roaming between the moored vessels searching for its mother. Hopes that it could be fed artificially were dismissed by experts such as Curt Jenner, the managing director of western Australia's non-profit Centre for Whale Research, as a logistical impossibility.
Hundreds of spectators turned up to see the lonely calf, and several Australians brought improvised feeding devices, insisting that the young mammal could be saved. The Aboriginal "whale whisperer" Bunna Lawrie, who appears in the upcoming film Whaledreamers, sang to the distressed mammal and stroked it. An organisation called the Divine Marine Group took out a legal injunction to delay the euthanisation, but was not able to serve it in time.
There are some photos of the whale being removed here.
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