The British rescuers unstuck this Monday morning a young whale stranded on the banks of the Thames, but the minke whale is not out of the woods, currently going up the river rather than taking off.
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This Minke's whale, which measures between three and four meters, was spotted Sunday in southwest London, stranded at a set of valves controlling the flow of water. Worried about a possible injury or underweight, a veterinarian examined and sprayed the cetacean, before the intervention of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI), greeted by the cheers of hundreds of anxious spectators. But it wasn't until around 1:00 a.m. that teams from the RNLI, London Fire Department and the Marine Rescue Service managed to free the whale using an airbag.
However, she managed to escape as rescuers "
took her to a deeper part of the river,
" an RNLI spokeswoman said on Monday, indicating that the small mammal "
exhibited disturbing behavior
" , to the point that "
the experts present fear that he is not in good health
". Since then, the cetacean has been seen first in the morning heading east and the North Sea. But other witnesses then identified him going upstream.
This is a "
very rare and unusual incident
," said London Fire Brigade Commander Glen Nicolaides.
"
We could not believe our eyes when we saw the poor beast, it's not every day that something like this happens
", confirmed to AFP Jake Manketo, 20, a local resident.
Among the smallest whales, the Minke's whale usually reaches 10 meters in adulthood and lives in the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but has occasionally been found as far as the Arctic or Ecuador.
In January 2006, a northern bottlenose whale had already become stranded in the Thames, generating enormous interest.
Unfortunately, the cetacean died while being brought back to the sea.