Underwater World Journal - Whale Off Central Oregon Coast Needed Rescuing, Disappears

• Underwater News
• Diving and UW activities
• Places underwater
• Treasures underwater
• Creatures of underwater
• Underwater goodies
• Interesting links

Whale Off Central Oregon Coast Needed Rescuing, Disappears

Monday, April 23, 2007 | Posted to Creatures of underwater

Late Friday afternoon, as a myriad of frenetic activity was happening on the north Oregon coast that involved baby seals or deceased animals washing up, the Seaside Aquarium got yet another call about a marine animal emergency. This time, it was on the central coast.

Our recommendations

Since manager Keith Chandler and other employees are part of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network, it’s also their job to look into any animal or fish that washes up – dead or alive. In this instance, a whale caught in a bunch of crab pots near Newport caused U.S. Coast Guard officials to call network members on the central coast. But since none were available, Chandler’s was the first contact name they came to where the call actually got through.

“I was the only one available,” Chandler said. “So they called me to report in what was happening. That’s what they have to do in cases like this: report it to the Marine Mammal Stranding Network.”

Over 100 miles away, of course Chandler could do nothing. Neither could the U.S. Coast Guard, technically, according to Petty Officer Keith Schowalter, with the Command Center in North Bend.

Schowalter said it was their job to only monitor the situation as a fishing boat named the Riptide discovered a whale in distress, about four miles west of Newport.

“The Riptide was coming back into Newport and Yaquina Bay when he noticed a whale caught in someone else’s crab pots,” Schowalter said.

The fisherman, who was alone on the boat, tried for two hours to extricate the whale from the crab pots, with a little progress. Schowalter said darkness rolled in, and the man called it quits, heading back into port.

“He recovered some of the crab pots,” Schowalter said. “But he was the only one on the vessel, so he went back to try and get others to come out and help him with the whale.

Morris Grover, head of the Whale Watch Center in Newport, said whales periodically get themselves caught in these crab pots out on the Oregon coast. If they aren’t freed somehow, they will suffocate underwater because they can’t surface to breathe.

The next morning, early Saturday, another north coast resident was called in about the situation. Dave Pastor owns the liquor store in Cannon Beach, but is also a freelance videographer who often contributes video of breaking news on the Oregon coast to various TV stations in Portland and to the Associated Press. He was alerted by KATU-TV and the U.S. Coast Guard and made ready to jump down to the area to film the rescue.

Pastor said he was waiting as a coast guard helicopter did some flybys that morning around the coordinates given by the fisherman, in an attempt to spot the whale.

“I got the call about 11 a.m.,” Pastor said. “The coast guard copter was ordered to fly over the area to look for it, but they couldn’t find it by that time.”

Pastor said this likely meant someone in the Marine Mammal Network on the central coast had been alerted to the situation by then, and they probably ordered the fly over.

The fact that the whale had disappeared meant either a really happy ending or a bad one, Chandler said. “He’s either ok and freed himself – or he’s dead.”

© Copyright 2006, Underwater World Journal