Image Credit:Pippa Low/The Telegraph.co.uk
By Alice Morris
An orca was seen earlier this month swimming off the coast of the Isle of Arran in Southwestern Scotland. The magnificent mammal was spotted in the Firth of Clyde and swimming in a westerly direction.
The Clyde Marine Mammal Project, a not-for-profit community organization reported the rare sighting on Facebook on November 16th.
Rik Angelini saw the animal first after recognizing its “unmistakable dorsal fin protruding from water.” The orca was spotted off the southwest coast of Arran around 1 PM on Nov 15th.
The sighting is a breath of fresh air after a troubling few weeks that saw multiple dead animals wash up on Irvine beach.
David Devoy, a mammal rescue medic at the British Diver Marine Mammal Rescue, believes that bad weather contributed to the sudden deaths of the animals, which included two seals and a baby minke whale.
The washed up mammals are especially unusual since there have been no reports of similar incidences in Irvine in the past two years.
“They [animal discoveries] are not common in this area but elsewhere they are,” said Devoy. “There are more on the east coast and further up north, but this is seal pup season and with recent storms there has been more in our local coastline, but it is unusual to have as many in such a short period.”
Finding stranded whales, dolphins, or porpoises on beaches is not very common, and while professionals are always best equipped to handle these situations, there are ways to help a beached animal.
According to the Daily Record, you should not try to return the animal to the sea in case it hasn’t recovered enough energy to swim away. Emergency hotlines can provide advice on how to approach an animal, but some steps you can take to help include:
- Keeping the animal in an upright position and digging trenches under the pectoral fins for support
- Covering the animal with wet sheets/towels and spraying or dousing the animal with water to keep it moist
- Not covering, or allowing any water to pass down the blowhole (nostril) on top of the animal’s head, which will cause the animal distress and can even kill it
- Keeping quiet, calm and gentle. Loud noise and disturbance will stress the animal out further
- Looking for distinguishing features on the animal and estimating its length to provide clues as to what species the animal is
- Looking for signs of injury and counting the number of breaths the animal takes in a minute, which can help determine how stressed the animal is
Most importantly, you should provide wildlife professionals with details of the animal’s exact location so that they can quickly provide assistance in rescuing the animal.