Out of the 51 short-finned pilot whales stranded along the shores of Florida’s Everglades National Park, 31 of them are starting to go back into the deeper ocean on Thursday.
The rescue teams are hopeful that this will be a turning point towards a successful survival of the remaining whales. Eleven were reported missing and thought to have died and sunk underwater. Four of the whales on the other hand had to be euthanized when scientists due to their low survival expectancy.
The rescue team is composed of members from multiple agencies which include the National Park Service and the Coast Guard and they were not expecting high survival rate until this new hopeful turn of events.
They used boats to block off the whales from the shoreline. According to NPSCG mammal scientist and marine mammal stranding network coordinator Blair Mase, they also used aluminum sound pipes to send vibrations under the water to discourage the pilot whales from swimming towards the shore.
Gently driving them towards the deeper waters, the rescuers soon saw their efforts paying off. Thirty-five of the whales have reached water 18-foot deep which was about six miles from the shore. Although this is far from ideal, the scientists were happy with the improvement.
Previous to this promising result, the rescue team was having a tough time herding the whales out to sea. According to Mase, there was one time when the whales spread out within 15 miles and a full hour from the closest port. Because of the remote location, the rescuers had difficulty communicating because of lack of cellphone signal plus the added challenge of lurking ravenous sharks.
"We are cautiously optimistic. Even though we are hopeful, this situation can go either way," said Mase to USA Today.
Short-finned pilot whales, which usually grow as large as 20 feet and swim in 1,000 feet deep waters, are very social mammals and often stick together. Thus, when one gets into trouble and needs to stop, all the others won’t keep moving.
