Animal Do-Gooders Kill Wandering Whale

A small whale wandered up the River Thames in London this week, and though apparently confused, seemed to be enjoying itself as it took in the sights of Merry Old England. But then along came the do-gooders, which meant a death sentence for the whale:

A whale that became stranded in the River Thames has died after a massive rescue attempt to save its life.

The 18ft (5m) northern bottle-nosed whale was first spotted in the river on Friday and rescuers began an attempt to save it on Saturday morning.

But the whale died at about 1900 GMT on Saturday as rescuers transported it on a barge towards deeper water in the Thames Estuary.

It was moved after being placed in a special pontoon near Battersea Bridge.

Alan Knight, from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) which led the rescue operation, said the animal died after it began to convulse while it was still on the barge.

"It has been a helter skelter ride all the way through. It is a sad end to a very long day," he said.

"Basically this is probably the right thing to happen in the end."

If the right thing was killing the whale, then why didn't they just bring in the Japanese whaling fleet and do it up right? The Japanese are always taking whales to "study" - why not "study" this one? Even a local naturalist was not pleased with the rescue attempt, though he later changed his tune:

Earlier, naturalist and television presenter, Terry Nutkins, said the rescue operation was the wrong thing to do and that the animal needed space.

He told BBC Radio Five Live: "It wouldn't know what was happening, it was surrounded by boats...it would have been absolutely terrified as well as being stressed because it wouldn't be used to noises of propellers or engines.

"It was kept...like a goldfish in a bowl. So, it doesn't surprise me that it's died."

However, he later concluded he had "no doubts" the rescue operation had been the best way to try to save the whale.

If it sounds like I've all the sudden gone nature lover on you, I haven't. Sometimes nature does things that we don't understand, and the human efforts to make everything all right frequently don't work at all, and may make things worse.

Every now and then a pod of dolphins or whales will beach themselves somewhere, and there will always be the frantic efforts by people to shove them back in the water or wet them down. No one ever seems to think that perhaps the creatures beached themselves because they're sick, tired of swimming, or are committing some bizarre dolphin suicide. Who knows, but we're pretty arrogant if we think we can "fix" everything like that which comes along.

Perhaps if they'd left the London whale alone, he would have wandered back out to sea by himself. He could have just been a tourist.