Seawater Proves to Be Tonic Needed by Ailing Big Mouth the Whale

Big Mouth, a 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 seawater 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 and then incurred a serious bone disease called osteomyelitis. When he was moved to Sea World, the whale was seriously ill and zoo officials did not think he would live.

Absence of Seawater

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

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 seawater would have an immediate, positive impact.

Shortly after the operation, the lesions returned, and Big Mouth got worse. 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 seawater 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 is also 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 rarely exceeds 15 in the wild. Big Mouth was swimming off the coast of northern Canada when officials from the Minnesota Zoo snared him about nine years ago.

His problems started about two years ago.

‘We Tried Everything’

“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 ki1852055663every specialist possible. We tried everything under the sun”--except moving him to natural seawater, which was Cornell’s and Sea World’s original proposal.

When it became apparent that Big Mouth would die unless he improved, the zoo decided to ship him to Sea World.

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

Tilson said the zoo is forming a “whale advisory committee” to determine its future policy on whales, or 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.”