Mother grey whale and calf beached off Boundary Bay freed

DELTA (NEWS 1130) – Two whales that were beached off Boundary Bay this afternoon in low tide have been freed.

According to the DFO and Vancouver Aquarium, the mother and her calf have headed out into the open sea.

Martin Haulena with Vancouver Aquarium says the whales seemed disoriented at first and initially swam back into shallow water, but then began heading in the right direction.

“The whales have definitely regained buoyancy and have definitely moved. At one point, however, they started moving in the wrong direction,” he says. “DFO, it looks like they’ve done a good job slowly trying to slowly get around the whales and move them back in the right direction.”

Even after they had been dislodged from the seabed, there was still a risk they could be stuck again.

“(Initially) they moved off into the right direction, and then turned back and started heading toward more shallow water, which, unfortunately sometimes happens when animals have been stranded for any period of time, they get quite disoriented,” he says. “The hope is that they are now moving in the right direction.”

The DFO’s Marine Mammal Rescue Team has now wrapped up the rescue, and helped direct the animals to swim away from the shore, making sure they don’t re-strand themselves.

If they can’t get out on their own, workers will be trying to use re-flotation pontoon boats to help them dislodge from the surface.

Marine Mammal Coordinator Paul Cottrell said the team was monitoring the stranded whales, making sure the public stays away, and the animals stay calm.

“With the tide coming in, we’re hoping they’re going to be able to move on their own, but if not, we do have re-flotation pontoons we can apply and then use to move the animals out into deep water,” he says.

“The tide’s coming in here pretty fast, so we’re hoping that will be enough for the animals to move by themselves, and we’re just going to make sure they don’t re-strand.”

(Dan Clouthier)

People gathered in the area Friday afternoon as crews responded to the situation — including a helicopter from the Coast Guard.

“The water is too shallow for any movement,” Dan Clouthier, who was in the area when the whales beached. “We walked out form Centennial Beach near the U.S.-Canada border and out in Boundary Bay on the tidal flats is a grey whale and her calf. They’re beached in a tidal pool.”

Clouthier says the water was just deep enough that you can see the top of both whales, saying they were both breathing but probably in some distress.

“Some tried to bucket the whale with water to cool it off and its calf but it got quite upset, didn’t want anyone near the calf I guess,” he says.

The stranding comes after reports of several grey whales being stranded along the west coast in North America this year as the whales make the annual migration to Alaska.

Some whales were hit by ships while others died of malnutrition, experts say.

-With files from Lasia Kretzel, Denise Wong, Renee Bernard, The Canadian Press