Reagan Phones Rescuers : Barge Races Death to Save 3 Trapped Gray Whales : Battered and Weak in Arctic

Three trapped California gray whales, their snouts worn down to the bone from frantic efforts to keep from being buried under a deadly layer of Arctic ice, battled today to survive long enough for rescuers to reach them.

An icebreaking barge was on the way, but the whales were battered and weak from their constant resurfacing for air.

Interest in the whales’ plight extended to Washington, where President Reagan telephoned the commander of the whale rescue operation in Alaska this afternoon to offer his support, telling him that Americans’ “hearts are with you and our prayers are also with you.”

One whale was wheezing with pneumonia caused by water in its lungs but all three were keeping up the struggle, said veterinarians who examined the suffering creatures.

“It’s really heartbreaking,” Cindy Lowry of Greenpeace said of the sick whale, which like the others gasps for breath through two shrinking holes in the ice off Point Barrow, the northernmost tip of America.

The whale was trying to rest its chin on a shelf of ice, said Ron Morris, rescue coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries service.

Eskimos have named the whales Siku (ice), Kannick (snowflake) and Poutu (the kind of open hole in the ice where the whales are trapped).

Polar Bears Nearby

Eight polar bears were lurking 7 miles east, hunting for seals, and they would have no compunction about making a feast of the weakened whales, Morris said. The bears pose enough of a threat that rescue workers now carry high-powered rifles.

At daybreak, the biggest helicopter in Alaska, a National Guard CH-54 Sikorsky Skycrane lifted off from the Prudhoe Bay oil complex on a Pentagon-approved mission to tow a 185-ton oil company ice-breaking barge 200 miles across the Arctic to free the whales from an icy death.

The launch repeatedly was delayed Monday by minor glitches, prompting National Guard Lt. Mike Haller to say, “We’re getting to sound like the space shuttle.”

Haller said the Skycrane--pulling the huge ice-breaking barge by four 800-foot-long nylon-and-steel cables--will travel as fast as it safely could but will need at least a full day to make the perilous journey to reach the otherwise doomed whales.

The whales are 7 miles from open water to the west where they could resume their migration to warmer waters off California and Mexico. The California gray whales had dawdled in the region too long, allowing the ice to trap them for more than a week.

Besides being battered by the jagged ice, the 24-to-30-foot-long mammals were exhausted from swimming against the ocean current to remain in place.

Chain Saws, Ice Picks

Eskimos, more accustomed to hunting wild animals for food than to saving them from natural disasters, were keeping the whales alive by using chain saws and ice picks to keep the two air holes open.

Temperatures in recent days have stayed below zero, causing new ice to form over the whales’ breathing holes as fast as volunteers can cut it away.

Forecaster Steve Paul predicted 50-below-zero wind chills by late today. The only consolation, Morris said, is that winds out of the east may blow ice out to sea.

Biologists said they are overwhelmed by the interest in the trapped whales. “Every year, probably dozens of grays drown or are crushed by the ice, but nobody ever knows about it,” biologist Craig George said.

California grays number about 20,000 and have been increasing an average 2.5% a year for the past decade.

The whales spend their winters in the warm waters off Mexico and Southern California.