How not to save a beached whale

DESTIN, FL — What would you do if you found a beached baby whale?

Encouraged by a group of people on a boat ride Friday night, two men jumped off the boat and swam to the rescue.

Although no laws were broken, officials say the rescue may have harmed the whale more than helped it.

“This happened west of the west jetty Destin Pass,” said Pam Rollins, who saw the event while she was on AJ’s Bimini Breeze boat.

“It was slipping and slapping on the beach and we thought it was a dolphin,” Rollins said.

When the two men swam to the beach and pushed the whale back into the water, it turned around and beached itself again.

On their rescue attempt, the men pushed the whale 40 to 50 feet out into the water.

“They said that they heard the mother whale making a noise like it was calling it,” Rollins said. “That is when the baby took off towards the mother.”

Rollins considers the two guys heroes.

“We thought it was pretty darn cool,” she said. “It’s not something that happens every day.”

But Blair Mase, stranding coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), says pushing a beached whale back into the water is the opposite of what should have been done.

“When you push it out, you’re just prolonging the problem and not allowing help to come,” Mase said.

She compared it to a person going to the hospital only to be turned away and helped back to his car. If a dolphin or whale beaches, it is usually sick or in some sort of care.

“I think people think, ‘It’s a whale. It belongs in the ocean, so let’s do that.’ But really, it’s there for a reason,” Mase said.

“A lot of times, when you push them out to the sea, they’ll just end up somewhere else and sometimes in a more difficult spot where they can’t get help.”

Rollins said people on the boat tried calling local authorities, but could not get a response Friday evening.

If the baby whale beaches in the area again, call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission hotline at 1-888-404-3922. Mase also suggested staying with the whale and stabilizing it until help gets there.

“We have trained people who can come to the beach and veterinarians can come and evaluate and determine really what the best course of action is for that animal,” Mase said.