7 stranded whales in Florida being rehabilitated
Date: 22-Apr-03
Country: USA
Author: Laura Myers
Of the 27 sleek black mammals, four died from an undetermined illness on the weekend. Seven, including at least two who were euthanized, died last week, when the whales were first discovered by a fisherman several miles offshore at the Content Keys, said Robert Lingenfelser, president of the 300-member Marine Mammal Conservancy in Key Largo, Florida.
Six were able to swim freely in deep water about 6 miles (10 km) off of Big Pine Key, located 30 miles (50 km) north of Key West at Florida's southern peninsula.
Three others were "unaccounted for" although several volunteer pilots searched over water and will continue searching on the weekend, Lingenfelser said.
An estimated 120 to 200 rescue workers on the weekend hydrated and coddled the remaining creatures at a county-owned facility known as Mariners Resort.
The whales were being treated in a 4-foot-deep sea (1.2-metre-deep) pen and fed purified water and an anti-dehydration mixture for children through feeding tubes. Two suffered severe sunburn and were protected with wet, cool sheets.
The seven whales undergoing rehabilitation include a 12-foot (3.5-metre) male estimated to weigh 1,200 to 1,400 pounds (550 to 650 kg), a 1-year-old female calf and five other females, including one who appeared to have adopted the baby calf.
Researchers performed field necropsies near the Content Keys, but it was not yet clear what caused the whale deaths.
Pilot whales, social and noisy, generally feed and travel in groups of five to 50 and are not considered endangered.
In 1995, rescue workers successfully rehabilitated two of four pilot whales that were stranded in the Florida Keys, Lingenfelser said.
Earlier this year, four pygmy sperm whales beached themselves in the upper Florida Keys. They all died.
