Pilot whale dies on Wester Ross shores after becoming stranded
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A pilot whale which became stranded on Firemore Beach, north of Gairloch, has died.
On Saturday (May 4), a hill walker spotted a long-finned pilot whale stranded along the coast, which was, at that point, still alive.
Shortly after being notified, the local British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) area co-ordinator medic, Donna Suzanne Hopton, sought help from local boat owners to reach the whale.
RELATED:
Dead humpback whale appears on Wester Ross beach after apparent chronic entanglement
MoD tight-lipped on submarine spotted by CalMac passengers
“With the help from local boat owners from Loch Ewe and the Summer Isles, my medics and I managed to get round the whale by sea,” Donna said.
“Just as we arrived it managed to free itself and began to swim. Initially it was struggling, but soon took off at speed and appeared to be ok. We all went back to Aultbea harbour – but it soon appeared that all was not well…”
Just 30 minutes later, the whale was seen at the mouth of Loch Ewe instead of heading towards deeper sea. Donna drove up to the cove, where she and her team kept watch of the cetacean for a few hours.
Donna continued: “After losing sight of it in the loch for 40 minutes my fellow medics and I decided to go home. We stopped at regular intervals to do a sweep with the binoculars, and that’s when I spotted it on the shores of Firemore Beach. It was thrashing its tail in the surf, but by the time I got down to the water’s edge, it had sadly died.
“What looked to be a happy ending initially was very sad in the end.”
Alongside her fellow medics, Donna managed to secure the whale so it didn’t wash away on the high tide.
On Sunday morning, Donna and her fellow medics Nic, Matt and Nicky, returned to keep watch, until Scottish Marine Animal Strandings Scheme (SMASS) arrived to take the whale away for autopsy. Donna hopes the autopsy will shed light on why the marine creature died.
