As a killer whale moaned, trapped in a nook of jagged rocks on Alaska’s Prince of Wales island, a boatload of Good Samaritans bolted into action.
After calling the US Coast Guard around 9am, Chance Strickland, the captain of a private yacht, and his crew anchored and went ashore to save the whale, which had become stranded on the island near the coast of British Columbia. They had seen it by chance while sailing past.
Injured and distressed under the hot sun, the orca was stranded four feet above the tide.
The crew started by hurling buckets of seawater onto it, keeping it cool and wet until help arrived. Eventually, they used a hose, also repelling birds that had feverishly gathered in nearby trees, hoping to feast on the 20ft-long whale.
Other orcas soon gathered near by, responding to the creature’s cries. “There were tears coming out of its eyes,” Strickland told The New York Times. “It was pretty sad.”
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Word soon spread and other people came to help. Pictures on social media showed several people hurling saltwater from buckets, their wellies submerged in kelp.
Eventually, wildlife officials arrived to take over.
The tide came in the mid-afternoon, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said, and eventually rose high enough to take the whale back out to sea, some six hours after it was first spotted.
“NOAA Fisheries marine mammal experts decided to take a wait-and-see approach, hoping that with the incoming tide, the killer whale would refloat and be able to leave the beach area,” said an agency spokeswoman. “It moved a bit slowly at first and meandered around a little before swimming away.”
The Canadian authorities identified the 13-year-old orca as T146D, a Bigg’s killer whale of the “West Coast transient” population, which numbers 400.
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There was speculation that the beaching, which occurred late last week, was caused by an 8.2-magnitude earthquake off the coast of southwestern Alaska, the most powerful in 50 years. However, the NOAA disputed that theory, adding that killer whale beachings were unusual but not unheard of.
Experts said the animal had probably mistimed the tides while hunting seals or sea lions, getting stuck when the tide went out. Once beached, the orca was in danger of overheating, being assailed by birds or bears, or even being crushed under its own weight. It cut itself on the rocks.
T146D is the fifth whale to be stranded in the Pacific Northwest in the past two decades, according to Canadian officials.
