Rescued porpoise dies
A PORPOISE rescued in Shetland on Friday with the help of a specialist team of whale rescuers has died.
The four man team from animal welfare charity British Divers Marine Life Rescue drove hundreds of miles to reach Shetland on Friday afternoon, flying in from Aberdeen with a trailer of equipment following by ferry.
They were expecting to carry out their first rescue of an entangled cetacean, after a 20 tonne humpback whale caught itself in a 420 metre lobster line off Lunning, near Vidlin, on Thursday.
The BDMLR team had recently trained with the US Marine Animal Entanglement Response Centre, in Massachusetts, but had yet to put their training into action in a live incident in this country.
By the time they reached Shetland the whale had disappeared without trace, but meanwhile a young porpoise had washed up on a beach outside a wildlife sanctuary on the islands.
Jan Bevington, who runs Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary, had spent all day with volunteers trying to refloat the female porpoise with help from Scottish SPCA, gradually stabilising it over the next eight hours. When the BDMLR team arrived they took it out into deeper water and it swam off.
The porpoise was seen swimming at the head of Urafirth, near Hillswick, on Saturday night, however local children found it dead on Sunday morning on the beach.
Mrs Bevington said: “On Thursday I spent all day watching the humpback whale and expected to be doing the same on Friday, but when we found the porpoise I knew I had to stay with it.
“It was a great relief to see it swim off when the divers took it out into deeper water, but it obviously wasn’t well. I am just glad we did what we could to give it a second chance and that it died a natural death.”
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BDMLR chairman Alan Knight said he was concerned that the humpback whale had disappeared along with the 12 lobster creels and the rope that was attached to them, but hoped that it had managed to disentangle itself.
“They estimate that half of the baleen whales that wash up on Scotland’s shores have died after being caught up in fishing nets or lobster lines so they pose a real hazard for these creatures,” Mr Knight said.
“All we can do is hope that this one freed itself. The Shetland coastguard helicopter has flown over the area over the weekend and seen no sign of the whale, so it may have escaped.
“For us it was the first time we have gone out to disentangle a whale for real and even though the humpback disappeared, we don’t feel it was a wasted journey. We proved that we can get to anywhere in the country within 24 hours.”
He added: “When we arrived at Hillswick we assessed the porpoise and saw that it was in good condition so we felt it was the right thing to refloat it. We’re sorry to hear it has died, but porpoises are very prone to stress.
“We would like to thank NorthLink Ferries and Eastern Airways for giving us free passage up here, and we’d also like to thank Scottish SPCA, Scottish Natural Heritage and Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary for doing such a good job of co-ordinating the whole operation and looking after the porpoise.”
Mr Knight and his colleagues Geoff Hammock, Rod Penrose and Ali Jack brought with them specialist equipment designed and made by their American trainers to cut whales free safely and advised people against trying to carry out a similar exercise themselves.
“It’s an extremely dangerous procedure and should not be attempted without prior training,” Mr Knight said.
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