'One shot. One whale'
2009-05-31 23:14
Cape Town - They were shot once in the brain. One by one. Until all of the whales which had beached near Kommetjie on Friday night had been killed.
Television footage of the scenes on the beach was interspersed by the sound of gunshots.
"One shot, one whale. Another shot, another whale," said the commentator.
The bulldozers brought in to push the whales out to sea were used to clear the carcasses.
Police desperately tried to clear the beach of dozens of families who had flocked to the shores in hope of a happy ending which turned nightmarish. There were also minor scuffles between officials and distraught volunteers trying to protect the whales.
A distraught volunteer snarled "You're fucking cruel," at Mike Meyer when he shot the first one with a hunting rifle. It was 14:58 on Saturday. A single bullet to the brain put another 39 out of their misery as well.
Meyer, of the Directorate Marine and Coastal Management, said all possible avenues had been exhausted when a decision was taken to euthanase the animals. He said rough seas had made the rescue effort especially difficult, adding that the whales' organs are badly damaged when they're beached. They were also becoming increasingly stressed.
Pushed back
About 200 volunteers, some who'd been in the water for up to six hours, frantically trying to rescue the whales, were outraged. Others cried inconsolably.
Most of the carcasses had been removed by late Sunday.
The head of the Dolphin Action and Protection Group, Nan Rice, said: "I feel quite sad, but it was the right thing to do.”
One of the volunteers, Marlese Classen from Riverside, said she and her daughter had responded to an SMS from a friend. "After an hour or so, I couldn't move my fingers," she said. Some of the volunteers still had their pyjamas on.
A researcher of the Cape Town branch of the University of Pretoria’s zoology’s department, Meredith Thornton, said some of the whales, who could weigh up to two tons and could be 6m long, were pushed back into the waves three times, only to be beached again.
The danger that exists because of the blood and floating whale carcasses, forced the NSRI to warn the public of possible shark attacks.
Bulldozers initially brought in to push the whales back into the water were later used to clear the carcasses from the bloody, seaweed-strewn sand.
Thornton said the post-mortems on the whales, which started at the Vissershok land fill site, could possibly offer a solution why the whales beached at Kommetjie.
And in another development a spokesperson for the Navy later denied allegations that the manoeuvres conducted in the vicinity of False Bay recently could have been the reason for the mass beaching of the waves.
Some of the volunteers blamed the beaching on the Navy’s machine gun exercises near Simon’s Town, but experts said it was highly unlikely.
- News24