Rescue Effort Saves 25 Beached Whales

The scientists and volunteers who turned out to help 50 beached pilot whales apparently managed to save about half of them, possibly the first time such an effort was so successful, a leader of the rescue effort said today.

“This is the future. We’ve gone the next step with saving whales that are trying to kill themselves,” said Robert Prescott, director of the Massachusetts Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

He said that of about 50 whales that had beached themselves on Cape Cod, 11 had died, 12 others were still stranded, but about 25 appear to have made it back into deep water.

The whales had headed for the shore in the mysterious beaching maneuver Wednesday. Scientists and volunteers who hurried to the scene managed to push many of them back into the water.

There were fears many of the whales would show up this morning, Prescott said, but a survey showed about two dozen were not stranded or close to the beaches.

Of the whales, which average 15 to 20 feet in length and weigh as much as two tons, 12 still were in danger of dying under the crush of their own weight. Most were in the vicinity of First Encounter Beach here.

Prescott said an effort was being made to herd five whales near shore into Salt Pond, a small pond accessible to Cape Cod Bay through a break in the beach.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to put any animals in the ocean today,” he said. “It’s going to take time for these animals to be stable, and then they’ll go, possibly tomorrow.”

On Wednesday, five of the whales suffocated or died of other causes, and six that could not be saved were killed by lethal injection.