# RIP little calf.



## cement (Aug 22, 2008)

I just got back home from watching them euthanase the baby whale at Greater Mackeral Beach.
I tried to answer to the other thread but it was closed before I got a chance. I would like to tell my story as it may help to enlighten others.

The reality of the situation was that we were to late and the authorities got it wrong, no more no less.

I only heard of the calf's plight yesterday morning , spoke to a colleague who made some calls and with the backing of Sea Shepard began putting a plan together.

Firstly those of you complaining about the cost to tax payers, you have no idea.
Secondly , to Sdaji, I respect you as a snake man, but don't comment on issues you don't know about. It only adds fuel to the ignorant rumours and is a hinderance not a help.

The whale milk substitute formula was coming from SA, it comes in 20 kg bags and we needed 300kg. We needed to feed him daily for two weeks where he would then be strong enough to take out to sea and hook up with a passing pod. Whales are very passive and social creatures and will accept a calf and teach it all it needs to know. Sea Shepard were picking up the cost of the formula, I was using my boat and paying for all necessary fuel and had a volunteer crew of very experienced watermen and a maring biologist on standby.

The main problem was the delivery of the formula, the biggest problem was getting clearance. Our co-ordinator was in touch with Current affair and Burkes backyard and other media as well as trying to get the navy onside as they override the NPWS.

Like I said we were to late, i believe he was to far gone by this morning anyway. We are now in the process of working on a whale unit in conjunction with Sea Shepard, to help in future.To be a little more mobile and to get government clearance so the REAL experts can be on the job.

We don't mind spending hrs in the freezing water in the pouring rain, besides its what we do for fun anyway when the swell comes up.

Rest in peace little calf, we failed today but learned from it.


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## daniel1234 (Aug 22, 2008)

May the gods smile on you next time.
Sorry for the outcome, appreciate the effort.

The only time failures are failures are when we learn nothing from them.
Tax payers money....mmm I'm glad it was used for a good cause. Now I gotta go to work.


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## Trouble (Aug 22, 2008)

Thanks for telling us that cement  I agree... we have learnt from this, so the next time (If it ever happens(I pray it wont, in human sight anyway)) we'll be prepared.
Thanks for your hard work on trying to save Colin.

cheers
Trouble


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## mysnakesau (Aug 22, 2008)

Poor little thing :cry: Thats sad. I am sure they thought they were doing the best they could.

Everytime I see whales on TV makes me want to get my marine training up so I can become rescue and care worker. I am already involved with FAWNA. Might look into it


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## Chris1 (Aug 22, 2008)

thanks for sharing your story,..i found it so sad hearing about him on the news and stuff,..mustve been great being able to be there incase u could help.

as far as cost to taxpayers goes, tehy use our taxes for so many things i disagree with i'd have been more than happy for it to be spent on him.


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## Manda1032 (Aug 22, 2008)

you can have my tax dollars, at least it would help line a little whales tummy then a fat politician!!
I will also be there with my own money, I don't earn much but I will give all I can.
Keep us informed of your project, I for one will support it 100%.
Goodbye sweet little Colin, If I could of I would have fed you day and night.


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## bundy_zigg (Aug 22, 2008)

It is nature running its course, its a sad fact of life. This happens all the time - we just dont normaly see it. I Think the way it has been handled is really bad and shows just how poor our NPW are in Aus, i know people say THE GOLDEN RULE is not to intervene but i think thats a load of lalala! If i find a baby bird thats fallen out of the nest i raise it! if i find a baby flying fox i raise it! if i find and injured animal i take it to the vat. I have put myself out of pocket for many animals and will continue to. So to all thoses who say let nature take its course would you just walk past and animal that needed your help? and as for the tax payers money! we spend how many millions of $ on criminals and Things like the New Years eve fireworks? Our money is wasted all the time on crud at least this would have been doing a good deed!


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## PhilK (Aug 22, 2008)

cement said:


> ... so the REAL experts can be on the job..



...you? And Sea Shepherd? As opposed to veterinarians and scientists... Of course .


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## caustichumor (Aug 22, 2008)

It sounds as though in this case any attempts would have merely prolonged the inevitable outcome, This was an extremely young, malnorished animal which had been injured by sharks. Good intentions and bottle feeding only heal so much.


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## snakelvr (Aug 22, 2008)

R.I.P. 'Colin'. At least you won't suffer anymore. :cry:


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## GSXR_Boy (Aug 22, 2008)

Wonder if people would feel the same if it was a shark or croc??

Good effort Cement


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## reptile32 (Aug 22, 2008)

they should have just left it alone, every one out there trying to save it has done more harm than good. R.I.P colin


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## coatesy (Aug 22, 2008)

I think that it is great that Australian band together to help innocent animals. This time we were not succcesful but there (hopefully not) may be a next time and we learnt from our mistakes - isn't that what we teach our children? all those people out in the world saying we should have done more - do they know exactly why the mother abandoned him in the first place? It sucks but it is Nature.


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## GSXR_Boy (Aug 22, 2008)

coatesy said:


> - do they know exactly why the mother abandoned him in the first place? It sucks but it is Nature.


 
Don't know if it's related but on a newsbreak they just said that a whale washed up on a south coast beach. Maybe her mum??


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## kandi (Aug 22, 2008)

R.I.P Colin you were never mean't to be, cement it's a hard task and cheers to you.


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## FNQ_Snake (Aug 22, 2008)

Ha ha, they didn't know how to even tell its sex!!! Makes we wonder how they ever thought they were going to keep *her* alive.


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## xander (Aug 22, 2008)

FNQ_Snake said:


> Ha ha, they didn't know how to even tell its sex!!! Makes we wonder how they ever thought they were going to keep *her* alive.



Do you know how hard it is to tell a 2-3 week old whales sex????? David Blyde, the vet who euth it is one of the most experienced and compassionate marine vets around. This calf had injuries from shark bites and was decided BY the RSPCA,NPWS,Qualified EXPERIENCED vets and marine biologsts. Also we pay taxes for shark nets..... Which KILL hundreds of dolphins,turtles,whales,sharks a year.....GO FIGURE.


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## Brother (Aug 22, 2008)

hey just a thought but I think that the reason that we sould not interven in nature is because of the food chain. If we were to follow around lions and saved all the animals they were about to eat the lions would die yes? How do we know for sure that from taking this animal out of it's environment that some other animal didn't die because it didn't get a feed?


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## Hetty (Aug 22, 2008)

According to the news they injected it with an overdose of anesthetic, I would have thought that would affect the animals that feed on dead whales?


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## xander (Aug 22, 2008)

There not feeding it out. They are doing an autopsy on it.


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## ambah (Aug 22, 2008)

It's pretty unfortunate what happened, but I'd rather my tax went to whales rather than couch potatoes


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## Hetty (Aug 22, 2008)

xander said:


> There not feeding it out. They are doing an autopsy on it.



Poor hagfish!

That makes sense though, thanks for the info.


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## Fiona74 (Aug 22, 2008)

ambah said:


> It's pretty unfortunate what happened, but I'd rather my tax went to whales rather than couch potatoes


 I agree.


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## Jewly (Aug 22, 2008)

Maybe if they euthanased a few prisoners we would have the money to be able to save these wonderful creatures


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## cement (Aug 23, 2008)

Hi guys thanks for the comments.
Whats done is done, and the people in charge at the time did their best. As far as possible nature has been able to run her course here. Nobody was allowed to attempt feeding and the calf was basically left to its own devices. 
It became weak from no nutrition and severly distressed and depressed. The call to euthanase will be condemned by some people no matter what. But it just simply reached a state where even its own mother could probably not have helped. No one there looked forward to having to do what was done.
There is no room for finger pointing, bad mouthing or blame as these are authorities that we wish to work with in the future.
The shark injuries were caused by cookie cutters, and were probably no big deal unless an infection gets in, but generally whales can survive this injury.
Sea Shepard has a wealth of marine scientist, marine mammal vets and maritime lawyers on board to help in situations like this, they are not a half baked group. They also have a huge amount of support from people who want to help financially with their endeavors. In this case it was just to little too late.

It is amazing how many people want to help in these cases. The only people that I have heard of that have something negative to say are actually on this forum. Must be a case of hide behind the keyboard. In person, its the anger towards NPWS and Maritime officials and water Police for not letting people help, that I come across but doesn't take much to calm them down and see that it was a tough decision that had to be made and they delayed as long as they could.

Cheers


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## Jewly (Aug 23, 2008)

I still don't see how doing nothing is 'doing their best'. Yes, in the end the whale was too far gone to help, but that wasn't the case in the beginning. If someone had acted in the whales best interest right from the start, then I'm sure it could have been saved.

If one of us were to leave an animal to starve then we'd be charged with neglect.


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## Fiona74 (Aug 23, 2008)

I think in this situation your damned if you do and damned if you don't.
NPWS chose to euthanase and are coming under fire for it. If they said they were going to let nature take its course then they would have been accused of letting the animal suffer.
When I watch those docos on Africa where the lion or cheetah chase down the baby antelope, knocking it off its feet a few times before they finally kill it, or worse, the african hunting dogs that don't even wait until their prey is dead before they start ripping into it, I say to myself 'how can the camera crew etc just stand there and watch that happen, I would have to do something'. But 'thats nature'. They don't interfere.
So how is leaving this whale calf to let nature sort it out any different?
Don't get me wrong, I really wish there was something we could have done but I don't think anyone is in a position to judge NPWS.


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## Fiona74 (Aug 23, 2008)

Jewly said:


> If one of us were to leave an animal to starve then we'd be charged with neglect.


Yes but chances are that animal of ours would be a pet. This is a wild animal, not somebodys pet.


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## slim6y (Aug 23, 2008)

dino - and others...

Figure this:

If the media didn't get involved NO ONE would have known....

Does a tree make a sound when it falls in the forest if no one is around?

Who cares - no one would know!

Would you care if a small earthquake, say 5 on the Richter scale dammed a river so all fish downstream died? 

If media didn't report it - you'd never have known!

The same case would apply here... 

Cement - thanks for your comments, was interesting to know.

I never thought any of the groups did anything wrong... I just don't know if anyone at all should have interfered at all (I'm really undecided on this one full stop).

Still... I am reminded of my wee starfish story... Can't save em all...


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## Vincey (Aug 23, 2008)

Brother said:


> hey just a thought but I think that the reason that we sould not interven in nature is because of the food chain. If we were to follow around lions and saved all the animals they were about to eat the lions would die yes? How do we know for sure that from taking this animal out of it's environment that some other animal didn't die because it didn't get a feed?



Its not like the whale was in the middle of being eaten. If it were the case, im sure people would watch in fascination, horror, whatever emotion one would feel. I agree with letting nature take its course.
But i also believe that we are a part of nature. So eh..


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## Fiona74 (Aug 23, 2008)

slim6y, I totally agree with you. I was going to say in my post (but thought it already too long) that who knows how often this happens way out to sea and we are none the wiser. It's the old 'out of sight out of mind'. 
I was also in two minds as to whether we should interfere or not, hence my 'damned if you do damned if you don't' comment.


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## hawkesbury reptiles (Aug 23, 2008)

dino the horse said:


> I think in this situation your damned if you do and damned if you don't.
> NPWS chose to euthanase and are coming under fire for it. If they said they were going to let nature take its course then they would have been accused of letting the animal suffer.
> When I watch those docos on Africa where the lion or cheetah chase down the baby antelope, knocking it off its feet a few times before they finally kill it, or worse, the african hunting dogs that don't even wait until their prey is dead before they start ripping into it, I say to myself 'how can the camera crew etc just stand there and watch that happen, I would have to do something'. But 'thats nature'. They don't interfere.
> So how is leaving this whale calf to let nature sort it out any different?
> Don't get me wrong, I really wish there was something we could have done but I don't think anyone is in a position to judge NPWS.


 

Well said Dino.....people shouldnt be judging something they know nothing about...especially the individual people involved. This was an extremely emotional time for eveyone directly involved, watching this whale day after day, looking for its mother, suckling and licking the sides of boats.....do you honestly think ALL avenues weren't explored!!


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## Jewly (Aug 23, 2008)

In a word.....YES!!


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## alex_c (Aug 23, 2008)

And what if this calf had a severe genetic defect? What would have happened if people saved it and it ended up breeding? Whatever happened to survival of the fittest? Sure this is sad but hey it's nature THIS IS HOW NATURE IS MEANT TO WORK human's interfering and saving weak animal's just creates weak genetic's.So really what is the value of it to the specie's? And no im not having a dig at wildlife carers etc who rehabilitate animal's injured in accident's etc but if its from natural cause's nature should be allowed to take it's course and not be interfered with. And in this particular situation the correct action was to put the poor thing out of it's misery.


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## craig.a.c (Aug 24, 2008)

All I can say is "Get over it". 
How many other young calfs have died out at sea and been eaten like nature intends?
Just because people decided to name it something had to be done. It was going to die so it should have been left to do so and other animals could benifit from it.


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## Jewly (Aug 24, 2008)

So if a pod of whales suddenly beached themselves on Bondi, do you think we should do nothing to try and save them?


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## daniel1234 (Aug 24, 2008)

Jewly said:


> So if a pod of whales suddenly beached themselves on Bondi, do you think we should do nothing to try and save them?


 
Exactly. Nature taking its course? Ok man is a creation of nature we can choose to allow things to live and die....lets just let our animals do as they will, lets let them run ferral, lets kill what we want be it scientific reasons or because it tastes good. Man is an act of nature and so lets breed everything with anything and see what freaks we can get. If we dont like that one we'll breed another to control it and then another to control that one. Come on people stuff the enviroment! Can't you see it is just nature taking it's course. Cant you see that man is destined to to infest this earth until there is nothing left. After all it is in our nature to destroy ourselves. Thats just nature right. So come on everyone, live for the moment, care nothing for anthing but you, if it is in the way, kill it, cut it or just knock it down. She'll be right mate, it's nature after all.

Oh yeh, and remember that everything on TV is true. There really is a Big Yellow talking bird that lives in a place called Sesame Street.

Dino's right, damned no matter what. The calf died, if it lived the people who got off of it and tried would be hero's. All the nay-sayers could have called authorities to get involved, there is always some one higher up. Yet it is easier to do nothing and be critical of everything.


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## hawkesbury reptiles (Aug 24, 2008)

daniel1234 said:


> Oh yeh, and remember that everything on TV is true. There really is a Big Yellow talking bird that lives in a place called Sesame Street.


 


HAHAHA....anyone who actually hangs off every word the media say really have to start thinking for themselves.......Some of the editing I have seen (especially a current affair and today tonight) makes me so angry, especially when I was there when they were filming and then saw how they twisted the whole story :x.

The media coverage for the whole thing was so twisted that the only true info is from people who were actually there......so rather than believe everything you hear on the media, maybe do some of your own homework and make an informed decision......


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## daniel1234 (Aug 24, 2008)

Exactly. Truth be known, I don't watch alot of TV because I work arvo's and I have family and stuff. The only thing I really know about this is this thread (which I read yesterday) and a nay-sayer I handed over to last night. So I am really as -or more guilty- as all those sitting back bagging those that got up and tried.


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## Justie (Aug 24, 2008)

Well i made this up


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## daniel1234 (Aug 24, 2008)

Nice Justie


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## OzExcalibur (Aug 24, 2008)

People are up in arms about one whale that was abandoned by its mother / pod, there are talks of money this and money that, donations to prevent this happening again and rah rah rah.... do these people offering money and donations to save this one whale offer anything to help the thousands killed by the Japanese Whaling Fleet? Are these same people demanding the government take action over this one whale making the same demands of the government over the Japanese Whaling Fleet?


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