Sea Water Gets Ailing Whale in the Swim

Big Mouth, the one-ton beluga whale being treated at Sea World in San Diego, has improved dramatically since being moved from the Minnesota Zoo in April, park officials said Thursday.

The reason involves the difference between sea water and tap water.

At the zoo in Minneapolis, Big Mouth swam around in tap water treated with rock salt. He developed skin lesions over most of his body, then incurred a serious bone disease called osteomyelitis. When he was moved to Sea World, the whale was seriously ill and it was feared he might die.

A Sea World official said the absence of sea water may have been the start of Big Mouth’s problems.

Part of Jawbone Removed

Lanny Cornell, a veterinarian who serves as zoological director of Sea World, was invited to Minnesota in early 1986 to take a look at Big Mouth. Cornell argued against amputating the forward part of Big Mouth’s lower mandible (jawbone), which the lesions had infected. The surgery was done anyway. Cornell thought sea water would have had an immediate, positive impact.

Shortly after the operation, the lesions returned, and Big Mouth’s condition worsened. Cornell returned to Minnesota and was asked to take Big Mouth back to Sea World.

That he did, and since April of this year, Big Mouth has radically improved in the sea-water environment of Sea World, which borders Mission Bay. Most of the lesions have disappeared, and Big Mouth is showing signs of being interested in mating. He also is eating like a whale, consuming about 65 pounds of fish a day.

Big Mouth is about 25 years old, Cornell estimates, even though the average age of such large white whales--belugas are small-toothed seteceans--rarely exceeds 15 in the wild. Big Mouth was swimming off the coast of northern Canada when he was captured about nine years ago.

About two years ago is when the problems started.

“Despite all kinds of antibiotic treatment, the lesions wouldn’t go away,” said Ron Tilson, director of biological programs at the Minnesota Zoo in Minneapolis. “They steadily increased in size. Over about 18 months, they became very serious. We did every kind of medical test possible. We brought in every specialist possible. We tried everything under the sun”--except moving him to real sea water, which was Cornell’s and Sea World’s original solution.

‘Ship Him Out’

In April of last year, a team of specialists was brought in, and several recommended surgery to stop the erosion of Big Mouth’s mouth. He had first injured it, Tilson said, by cutting himself on a metal strut while leaping up for food. Osteomyelitis had also eaten away at his left pectoral fin, making swimming excruciating.

“We had a meeting with the staff,” Tilson said, “and decided we had two options. Either he’d stay here, and he’d progress to the point where he’d die or we’d kill him to keep him from suffering, or we’d ship him out. Our zoo director opted to send him to Sea World.”

Cornell, 48, who has worked with marine mammals since 1964, said Big Mouth took to sea water immediately. An agreement was made with the Minnesota Zoo: Big Mouth would stay at Sea World until he was healed and the zoo would upgrade its holding tanks and filtration-chlorination system. Tilson said the zoo had always treated its tap water and rock salt solution with chlorine, “which was outdated about a decade ago.” He said most holding tanks for whales are treated with ozone, a gas that kills bacteria more effectively and isn’t as harsh to the animal.

“During his surgery, we put about $9,000 worth of ocean salt into our system,” Tilson said, “but, gee, it’s hard to afford that after a while.”

Asked whether Big Mouth would have incurred osteomyelitis had he been put in sea water to begin with--say, at one of Sea World’s facilities--Tilson said:

“Naturally, that’s a point of contention. I don’t know. Lanny says he probably wouldn’t (have incurred the disease). Lanny also says he probably wouldn’t have needed the surgery if he’d been put in sea water as soon as he got sick.”

Tilson said he doesn’t know whether Big Mouth will stay at Sea World or return to Minnesota. Cornell said it’s the zoo’s decision: “After all, they own him.”

Tilson said the zoo was forming a “whale advisory committee” to determine its future policy on whales, and whether it should have them at all.

“One deterrent is cost,” he said. “A decent holding facility now costs about $10 million. I don’t know what will happen. I will say that when we sent Big Mouth out, our assumption was he wasn’t going to live.

“It’s good to hear he’s doing so well.”