Rescuers Cut 24 Holes; Whales Romp

Working around the clock, Eskimo rescue teams with chain saws succeeded in cutting 24 holes in the ice near three stranded California gray whales late Friday, and the whales explored their new freedom with gusto.

“The whales are running up and down the holes,” said Ron Morris, who is coordinating the rescue. “They are using every one of them.”

The willingness of the whales to use the new holes eased concerns among marine biologists who feared the animals might not be willing to leave the safe refuge where they have survived the past two weeks.

Helicopter Bashes Ice

Meanwhile, an Alaska National Guard helicopter poked three more holes through the ice four miles from the whales by “bashing” a five-ton chunk of concrete with a steel tip into the foot-thick ice, said Col. Tom Carroll, who is in charge of the Guard’s role in the dramatic rescue.

Today, crews will continue sawing additional holes through the ice close to the whales as the helicopter bashes holes farther out. Ultimately, Morris said, the holes could provide a continuous chain of breathing spots to enable the whales to escape. In the end, the helicopter may prove the more expedient of the two. Carroll said the copter took only about 15 minutes to open each hole. The small chunks of ice left after the basher does its work were being pushed back up under the sheet of ice by ground crewmen with poles.

As the whales move farther and farther out toward freedom, the holes nearest shore will be allowed to freeze to keep them from returning.

Meanwhile, calls continued to pour into the rescue center here, keeping three operators busy throughout the day, according to Marie Adams, spokeswoman for the city of Barrow.

The calls, coming literally from all over the world, are from people offering money to help pay the considerable cost of the rescue effort. Many others call to offer to ship equipment to this northernmost city in the United States.

“Some people are very emotional, crying over the telephone,” she said. “It’s very hard to deal with.”

She said the question most frequently asked is why explosives are not being used to blast the ice away. Marine biologists rejected that idea early in the program out of fear of scaring the whales so much they would swim off to a sure death. The whales must surface every four or five minutes to breathe, and if they were frightened away from the holes that have been cut in the ice, they could not survive.

The whales appeared to be enduring their ordeal in reasonably good shape Friday.

“They looked great to me,” Morris said.

All day Friday the whales continued to poke their snouts through the hole where they have survived since they were discovered two weeks ago.

Whales Jockey for Position

The hole is so small--about 20 feet square--that the whales pushed against each other constantly as they struggled for room to breathe.

With any luck, their ordeal may be nearing an end.

And if all else fails, Greenpeace, the environmental group, reported that the Soviet Union has offered to break a path to the whales with an icebreaking ship next week if current rescue efforts do not succeed. The ship, the Admiral Makarov, is 300 miles north of Point Barrow, said Campbell Plowder of Greenpeace, quoting from a message received from the Soviet State Committee on Hydrometeorology.

Gary Hufford of the National Weather Service said rescue crews should have at least two more days of good weather--good weather for this part of the world, that is.

With 20 knot winds, the chill factor at the site was expected to dip to about 40 degrees below zero, he said.

“Everything looks like a ‘go’ through Sunday,” Hufford said.

The progress was viewed with some emotion by those who have worked to free the whales.

“We have what we think may be a little bit of a winner,” Carroll said.