The one that got away …

Published on Monday 3 August 2009 22:05

MARINE experts hope a whale which escaped after beaching in a Scottish harbour has now survived a return to the deep.

Two six-metre-long Northern Bottlenose whales became stranded on the shores of Cromarty Bay in the Black Isle on Sunday.

Both were given an anaesthetic by vets but although one died the other swam out of Cromarty harbour at high tide at about 9pm and has not been seen since.

As an aerial and shoreline search continued yesterday, the dead animal was taken to Inverness for a post-mortem examination.

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society's head of Scottish policy, Sarah Dolman, said: "The post-mortem will allow us to find out if it was a healthy animal and it was just some kind of navigational error or if it was just in water that was too shallow that caused it to strand, or if it was something else like disease or pollution.

"The animal that returned to sea has not been seen again despite an aerial search covering the coastline from Fort George to Tarbert (in Easter Ross)."

The Northern Bottlenose whale is normally found in deep water – between 1,000-2,000ft – in the North Atlantic Ocean and subarctic waters.

A ten-metre-long whale had also been spotted near Cromarty before the two younger animals beached.

Ms Dolman said: "It's not beyond the realms of possibility that if the animal that swam away came back out into the deeper water of the Moray Firth and caught up with the other individual it could have survived. Who knows, it's speculation after that."

She said the whale that died was closer to the land and once it was deprived of the buoyancy of the water its own body weight would have crushed its internal organs on the beach.

"The other animal was still in the water and still had that buoyancy and so, without any internal injuries, once the anaesthetic had worn off, it is possible that it survived.

"It's important to get the post-mortem results on the animal that did die. In the past when this species has stranded around the coastline they have generally been dehydrated and not been feeding as they have been out of their normal deep habitat.

"So that might be the case with these animals, in which case the prognosis would not be great for the animal that went back out to sea."

She said it is the first time a beached Northern Bottlenose whale had swum away again and volunteers have been asked to monitor the coastline for any sign of the animal.

She added: "This is an unusual situation. It's taken a lot of us by surprise. People have been out looking this morning from land and we have been co-ordinating with local boat operators."

Northern Bottlenose whales can be seen sometimes off the islands on the west coast of Scotland and the east of England.

DOLPHIN TALK SIMILAR TO HUMANS'

DOLPHIN body language follows human rules of verbal communication, scientists have discovered.

As a general rule, the most frequently used words in human languages tend to be the shortest.

The same law applies to dolphins slapping their tails, diving, flopping sideways, and performing other movements when surface swimming, according to researchers.

Dr David Lusseau, from the University of Aberdeen, and Dr Ferrer i Cancho, from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Spain, studied bottlenose dolphins living off the coast of New Zealand.

"Patterns of dolphin behaviour at the surface obey the same law of brevity as human language, with both seeking out the simplest and most efficient codes," said Dr Ramon Ferrer i Cancho,

The "law of brevity" proposed by linguists holds that the most frequently used words – such as "the" and "but" – are also the shortest.

Dolphins appear to use the same "linguistic economy" in their swimming movements, say the researchers.

The creatures have a complex language that scientists are still far from understanding.