Baby Whale Still Dying On Long Island

[UPDATE BELOW] The baby hump back whale that has been beached in East Hampton since yesterday morning is still there, and Chuck Bowman of the Riverhead Foundation tells the NY Post that his crew will stay with it until it dies, at which time they'll conduct a necropsy (the local police chief told WPIX that it did not appear physically injured).

The baby whale is stranded without its mother, who it would need to be nursed back to health. Bowman explains, "They are dependent on their mother. You know, they're still drinking milk, they don't eat food.... even if we could provide that caloric intake they grow to be 40 to 50-feet long. There is no place in the world that's going to have the ability to keep it." There was a group of whales spotted in the waters nearby, but there's no way to reunite the two even if it the baby's mother was amongst them.

Last year a hump back whale washed up in New Jersey and others were spotted in the Hudson and off Coney Island. Bowman says that recently there have been more whale sightings off the coast of Montauk... monsters beware!

UPDATE: Newsday (subscription only) reports that while Bowman would prefer the whale die naturally, it may be euthanized. However, he says that the process would be complicated and would take a large amount of solution. There are also safety concerns—he notes, "We need a plan so that we don't put any of our staff in danger, because if they walk up to the whale and put a needle in him, we don't know if the whale would have a spasm, thrash around and possibly break someone's neck."

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By Jen Carlson in News on April 7, 2010 1:33 PM

Comments [rss]

Spook

They should push the whale back into the sea and it will call her/his mother who will come and get it! Jezzz, that's why the whales are hanging around for!

kazubes

just hit it with a TOW missile

longacre

A Harpoon missile would be more appropriate.

Dead Himmler

I would pay good money to watch that.

fuboy

This sucks, sorry baby whale.

Now to take care of the corpse - where'd we put that dynamite?

Gotham Extremist

Cut him up and serve some tasty sushi already.

Guest

Actually felix, if you're talking about me, and you usually are when you start your infantile name calling, I have extreme sympathy for this whale. I was calling on you to do something to help it. It's a shame you can't break out of your hate-filled bubble to see that.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

asshole, take your dark humor and shove it up your fat ass.

Guest

Name calling again. You are a sad, pathetic individual. No, I take that back. You're not individual at all. And for the record, I'm not fat (I have the body of someone 15 years younger than myself - just ask my doctor) and there was no dark humor in my post. I really want you to do something to help out this poor whale. It's sad to see any life fade away slowly like that.

jibbly

There's a whale dying out there and you're typing insults to a stranger on a blog's message board?????!!!

FOR MUST HATE ANIMALS AND EAT BABIES!!1!!!!11one!!1Elven!!

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

That's sad and of course the usual above assholes who comments reflect their apathy and ignorance.

seven

Look, I have sympathy for the whale, as evident by my last comment, but also, unless this whale was somehow forced to the beach by humans, this is part of nature. Whales beached themselves long before we arrived on the scene. I don't think any sort of animal rights rhetoric is relevant here.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

it's nature but the comments above are tasteless and ignorant.

jechan

Never had baby whale meat before.

NannyState

Fry cubes of it with new potatoes like they do in Norway and serve with a nice coarse mustard.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

asshole

seven

I wonder if there is an effective and humane way to kill a whale quickly. Probably not, but its sad to see this thing die such a slow, painful death. That's nature though, I guess.