47-foot Blue Whale rescued after it washes ashore at Ratnagiri beach

MUMBAI: A 47-foot Blue Whale, the largest mammal in the world, was rescued from a beach near a village called Madban, close to the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant in

MUMBAI: A 47-foot Blue Whale, the largest mammal in the world, was rescued from a beach near a village called Madban, close to the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant in Ratnagiri district on Sunday. Officials said this was one of the biggest rescue operations of a beached mammal in the country.

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Estimated to weigh around 20 tonnes, the whale had been beached for more than two days. Local fishermen spotted the mammal on Saturday evening and informed forest officers. On Sunday morning, two boats with 50 personnel carried out the rescue operation for more than eight hours by pulling the mammal into the sea with the help of ropes during high tide.

“Four forest officials led the rescue operation along with local NGOs, fishermen and the whale was pulled into deep sea by Sunday afternoon,” said N Vasudevan, chief conservator of forest, state mangrove cell. “The whale was stranded along the shoreline during low tide on Thursday or Friday. We can only assume this because the animal was out of the water when it was found and its ribs were visible.” BR Patil, range forest officer, Ratnagiri said, “The animal could have suffered an injury or an internal parasitic infection owing to which it lost its navigation abilities and moved closer to shore. However, after the massive rescue operation, we saw the whale make its way back into the deep sea.”

The Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) falls under the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1986. “Being marine mammals, large whales are not designed to support their weight on land and the body crushes itself under its own weight,” said Mihir Sule, member, Konkan Cetacean Research Team.