[ad_1]
A small minke whale has been freed after it got stuck almost 100 miles up the River Thames.
Hundreds of people gathered at Richmond Lock and Weir in west London on Sunday evening after the three to four metre long mammal was spotted, stranded on the lock’s boat rollers.
The whale was kept damp as a man, believed to work for the Port of London Authority (PLA), hosed it down. Meanwhile, a vet performed a check-up on the river’s edge with the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI), appearing at the scene to cheers from the crowd at around 9pm.
Both the British Divers Marine Life Rescue and the Fire Brigade were also at the scene in an attempt to assist the animal back into the water.
Martin Garside from the Port of London Authority, which operates Richmond Lock, said he thinks it is the furthest a whale had ever been known to swim up the Thames.
“It’s 90 miles from the North Sea – that’s quite an achievement,” he said.
The whale was finally freed at about 1am on Monday morning and has now been moved to a more “stable” location, said the London Fire Brigade. It will be assessed to see the scale of its injuries and whether or not it can be released, reported the BBC.
It is believed the whale was first spotted at Sunday lunchtime by filmmaker Gareth Fubry, a few miles up the river near to Barnes Bridge.
A spokesman for the PLA, which operated the lock said: “At around 7pm on Sunday, a small whale, approximately 3-4m long, believed to be a Minke whale, became stranded at Richmond Lock and Weir.
“PLA staff have attempted to assist the whale with water along with British Divers Marine Life Rescue.”
Martin Garside, a spokesman from Port of London Authority said that its release was only a “mild success.”
He explained: “It is a mild success in the sense that the animal is no longer trapped on concrete – but that whale’s life hangs in the balance: it is injured, it is very young and it is so far from home,” reported Reuters.
Minke whales are the smallest type of whale and typically grow to about 10m long.
They are usually found in the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but can be found at the ice edge in the Arctic during the summer and south, near to the equator, during the winter.
In 2019 three whales were found dead in the Thames, including a minke and a humpback.
[ad_2]
Source link
