Posted on: Wednesday, August 15, 2001

Whale brings out best in humans

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

Efforts to save a baby sperm whale failed Monday, but gave rescuers a chance to learn more about the elusive species. And whatever they learned about whales, some said yesterday they learned even more about human beings.

From the veterinarians who rushed in to help the whale that was stranded on the Kona shore Sunday, to the volunteers from the dolphin program at Hilton Waikoloa, to the businessman who opened a fisheries tank for the whale, "everybody was incredibly selfless and incredibly hard-working and incredibly giving," said Marlee Breese, former curator of Sea Life Park on O'ahu.

Why did dozens converge on the Kona coast to tend to the whale in the water, lift her to a waiting truck, take her to the Natural Energy Laboratory and stay with her in a tank where she died just before 7 p.m. Monday?

Breese said for some it's the mystery and the mystique about marine mammals, "something about them that people really connect with."

For others like O'ahu veterinarian Dr. Robert Braun, who donated his time and expense, there was a professional issue, doing what they know how to do, she said.

"I think people are basically good," Breese said, "and people want to help, and on something like this it is very uncomplicated, the perception of need is very straightforward and the desire to help is very strong."

That is what seized spear-fisherman Sam Kalele around 2 p.m. Sunday. He heard his family yelling "shark" at him and turned around to see a big tiger coming toward him and then veering toward what looked at first like a seal but what was a baby whale churning in the bloody water.

"The shark just passed me, trying to nibble 'em, and I thought maybe you would have a chance — one crazy Hawaiian thought — I was going to save the whale, just trying to help the poor animal, you know," he said.

Kalele grabbed the tail of the 1,200 pound, 10-foot long baby and pulled it toward shallow water. With Morgan Leleiwi and Frankie Choy pushing, they got it into a pond.

"Try to calm him down and try to keep him upright where he can breathe, oh, my back was aching and he keep on spinning and thrashing and try to launch himself onto the rocks, and when that tail started whacking I was getting cut from the rocks," Kalele said.

But then the rest of the family came down and took turns along with the people across the road — "all the people I grew up with" — waiting hour after hour for the vet from Honolulu.

"I don't know a lot about whales, but I learned a lot about the people," Kalele said.

Charles Nahale, the state conservation enforcement officer in Kona, said it was something to see, the whole community coming together to give this whale a chance.

As darkness fell, a man drove up with a portable generator and lights, and then someone from a nearby condominium let them run power to the beach. The workers from the dolphin program arrived and stepped into the water to help. Some of them nicknamed the whale Emma. A blood sample was taken, and they sloshed sugar water down her throat.

Then, about 11 p.m., came "the trickiest part, when we moved the animal," said Bob Wolden from the dolphin program. "We had 15 people in the water with the ocean crashing against us."

After a few practices, they lifted the whale into a truck. Plenty of volunteers came along during the half-hour ride to the Natural Energy Laboratory so they could lift her from the truck and into a tank.

It was, Wolden said, a chance for many of his crew to experience their first mammal rescue effort, and an even rarer chance to be close to the elusive sperm whale species.

Hawai'i residents and visitors see humpback whales in season, an estimated 3,500 to 5,000 of them down from Alaska every year, leaping and blowing sometimes a few hundred yards off shore, said Naomi McIntosh, acting manager of the National Humpback Whale Sanctuary.

But we rarely see the distinctive angled spout of the sperm whale, an animal that dives 10,000 feet to eat and stays far off shore, McIntosh said. Strandings of humpbacks are seen two or three times a season, and often involve newborns in their most vulnerable stage of life, McIntosh said.

Whales that wash ashore do so for a reason, and rescuers are not optimistic about saving them because something is wrong to begin with, she said. A necropsy was conducted late Monday, but results were not in and may not reveal the cause of death.

Another mystery, McIntosh said, is "where did the mother go? From what we know of these animals, the mothers are fairly attentive."

Maybe, McIntosh said, a natural selection practice among killer whales set in. "The pod rallies around a calf that is not doing well and tries to get it to swim, but if it cannot after a while they swim off and leave it behind," she said.

What brings humans to the rescue?

"Maybe," McIntosh said, "it is a sense of duty. Man has been responsible for the depletion of these species. Maybe it is a sense that we really need to look at that and make amends for what man has done."

Braun, Wolden, his dolphin crew and others stayed in the holding tank until the whale died.

"When she finally went, it was a very peaceful thing," Wolden said. "It was very quiet — no thrashing around — and our staff was in the water with her; and when she did pass, she wasn't alone.

"You try to remain detached, but if you can remain completely detached at a moment like that, then you are almost not a human being."