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Efforts to Rescue Whale on the Thames River (BBC) |
A whale that had become stranded in the Thames River in London has died following a failed rescue attempt. Experts are currently studying the body of the bottle-nosed whale.
The five-meter-long whale died from seizures at 19:00 GMT on Saturday after attempts were made to transport it to deeper waters using a barge.
Prior to this, the whale had been trapped in shallow waters near London Bridge. Rescuers had placed fabric and poured water over the whale’s back to prevent its skin from drying out due to lack of moisture. Subsequently, marine mammal rescue teams used special floats and a barge in an attempt to guide the whale back to deeper waters. This rescue operation is estimated to have cost up to £100,000 (over 2.8 billion Vietnamese Dong).
The whale, which could weigh up to four tons, was first spotted in the Thames on Friday.
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| A whale longer than 5 meters swimming in the Thames River in central London (Andrew Parsons/AP) | This is a bottle-nosed whale swimming through the area near the UK Parliament. (Andrew Parsons/AP) |
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| Hundreds of people gathered on bridges and along the banks of the Thames River to witness this strange event. (Andrew Parsons/AP) | Although the whale appeared to be breathing normally, experts were concerned that the animal might have been injured while trying to navigate around barriers at the river’s mouth. (British Divers Marine Life Rescue / PA.) |
This is the first time a critically endangered animal has been spotted stranded in the Thames since monitoring of these events began nearly a century ago.
