A 30-foot-long sperm whale that stranded itself in shallow surf Tuesday on Mustang Island was euthanized after rescuers concluded he was too sick to be sent back to sea and too massive to be rehabilitated ashore.
Beachgoers first noticed the whale, estimated to weigh between eight and 10 tons, floundering at the third sandbar, said Lea Walker, a regional director of the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Corpus Christi lifeguards patrolling the beach along with police and volunteers with the network responded to the mammal about 4:30 p.m.
By that time, it had washed about 40 feet from shore, with curious onlookers flanking it in the water as it thrashed about. Lifeguards and police cleared the area.
Tim Tristan, a veterinarian with the Texas State Aquarium called to the scene who later treated the whale, said marine mammals only beach themselves when something seriously is wrong, and the sperm whale beached Tuesday was no exception.
“This animal stranded for a reason,” Tristan said. “It can be heartbreaking, but all we could do was make it comfortable.”
Tristan gave the whale two doses of tranquilizers, enough to knock out two or three elephants, and rescuers planned to haul it to shore with a heavy-duty tow truck before euthanizing it. A necropsy will be conducted early Wednesday.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to learn more why this happened and apply that information to other animals,” Tristan said.
A wrecker with the Texas Wrecker Service volunteered to pull the whale from the water, likely saving $9,000, police said.
Walker said the whale likely was an adolescent, it’s teeth not fully formed. At 30 feet long, the whale would have been impossible to transport because no equipment was available locally, nor a suitable tank available that could hold it, she said.
Sperm whales, while rare for the area, are not unprecedented for this part of the Gulf, said Tony Amos of the stranding network. The mammals typically are concentrated in the Mississippi Canyon area of the gulf.
Before rescuers arrived and were able to clear the beach, throngs of people got dangerously close to the whale, lifeguards said.
