A whale calf rescued from the beach at a seaside village in Jiangsu province on Monday was found stranded again on Wednesday.
Villagers in Yuantuojiao Village, Yinyang town, Qidong city and the authorities had rescued the whale and returned it to sea, but it was found beached again three kilometers away around noon on Wednesday.
After receiving the notice, the Ocean and Fishery Bureau of Nantong City immediately dispatched a 300-ton law enforcement ship with more advanced equipment to rescue the whale.
To transport the whale back to a deep water area, rescuers first built a flume to transfer the whale to the sea by using a water cannon to flush away silt and wrapped the whale in a sheet of canvas that was tied with pulling ropes. Then, over 30 rescuers at the scene pulled the ropes to slowly move the whale from its stranded location to the sea.
When the tide began to rise at dusk, the whale slowly swam back to the sea under the escort of the law enforcement ship.
“I’m very worried about the whale’s health,” said Tang Jianhua, a researcher at the Jiangsu Provincial Marine Aquaculture Research Institute. “There must be something wrong with the stranded whale, which has affected its positioning function. The aimlessly wandering and lonely whale calf is prone to attackers, and it is hardly likely for it to survive any attack.”
