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CALVIN R. PECK, JR.
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Before It’s News
December 10, 2012
Dead beached pygmy sperm whale returns to Bald Head Island, North Carolina
Author: Kate Elizabeth Queram
A beached whale pushed back out to sea Sunday afternoon died sometime during the night and
floated back onto Bald Head Island's eastern shore this morning, officials said.
"It has washed back on the beach late this morning, around 11," said Village Manager Calvin
Peck. "The North Carolina Marine Mammal Stranding Team is working on a plan to return the
body to their lab for a necropsy."
The whale – believed to be a female pygmy sperm whale, between 10 and 15 feet long – first
washed up on East Beach around 11 a.m. Sunday, according to Suzanne Dorsey, executive
director of the Bald Head Island Conservancy.
"We started our wildlife protocol, which is to contact the standing team," Dorsey said. "We
dispatched some folks out to the island and started organizing getting the stranding team out
here."
While officials awaited the arrival of the team, a handful of Bald Head Island residents decided
to band together and push the whale back out to sea, a well-meaning but ultimately incorrect
course of action. As a federally protected species, it's illegal to come within 1,500 feet of certain
species of whales.
"Their intention was in no way bad, and they didn't know the stranding team was en route,"
Dorsey said. "But it died while they were pushing it back into the water, and doing that
prevented us from getting the stranding team there.
"That team has a vet and the vet could have hopefully helped it, and if nothing else could have
euthanized the whale, stopped its suffering and determined the cause of death."
Conservancy staff waited for the whale to wash back on shore and early this morning alerted
members of the stranding team, who are on-site.
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