On the 20/1/06 there was a bottle nose Whale swimming in the Thames. It was a baby Whale about 20 meters long and weighed 3 tonnes. It was lost. His natural habitat is the North Atlantic, and lives usually 1000 meters under the water, where it feeds from small fishes and squids.

At first the rescue team tried to direct the animal so that it would swim towards the Thames Estuary and then back into the sea, but when the tide came in the animal could not swim against the current, so it swam back into the river.

It was also discovered that Willi had injuries on his body, and an infected eye, this may have been the reason why he came into shallow waters of the river.

The Whale has to come up from the the deep water for breathing, otherwise he would drown. In this case it was presumed that the Willi was looking for shallow waters for breathing purposes, because of illness.  Another reason for swimming into shallow water could have been the noise in the Atlantic, because of the ships and of other industrial  developments. The baby whale may have been separated from his mother.

The tragedy is that we do not know enough  of these mammals, and how they communicate. In real terms  we do not know what really happened to Willy to cause him to be in this situation?

On Saturday the 21/1/06 it became clear the baby whale  could not make his own way to the open sea

The rescue team was at hand, and waited till Willi  became beached, he then was hoisted on to a boat, which was thought to be his rescue, but it was not to be.
The animal died on the journey to safety from a convulsion,

The last time a whale swam into the Thames was in 1913 The last thing I  would  stress,  that this happening was a warning to us all, and a reminder that we should take more care to preserve the lives of all species on our beautiful planet, and mend the way we live this days, and use natural recourses.


                                                                            Christa 22/1/06