A seriously injured pygmy or dwarf sperm whale stranded Monday morning on Moloka'i's One'a Beach just west of the Kalaupapa settlement, but it fought its way back to sea as the tide rose.

Naturalists said the small whale's injuries were so severe that it was not expected to survive. Search crews have not seen signs of it since it swam through 10-foot surf to get back to deep water.

Kalaupapa National Historical Park employees spotted the whale about 7 a.m. Monday on the black-sand beach where it had apparently beached itself and was left above the wash of the waves as the tide fell. The animal had multiple injuries — some healing, others fresh.

Park marine ecologist Eric Brown said there were signs of healing around a cookie-cutter shark bite and a deep gash between the pectoral fins. But it also had severe bite wounds on its head that may have been caused by a tiger shark, said David Schofield, NOAA's marine mammal response coordinator for the Pacific islands.

Additionally, the whale had numerous fresh, bleeding scrape wounds that may have come from recently crossing a reef.

"It was in very bad shape. It probably had sustained a lot of blood loss," Schofield said.

Brown and Schofield had been arranging to fly a marine mammal veterinarian to Kalaupapa to inspect the whale, but as the tide rose and waves washed up under the whale, it appeared to revive.

"We had pretty good wave action. The animal started flailing around quite a bit. It was rolling around in the surf, and then it got into deeper water," Brown said.

It swam out for some distance, returned to shallow water, then turned seaward again and fought its way through the breaking surf. That was the last that was seen of it.

Schofield said the animal was either a young pygmy or a fully grown dwarf sperm whale, 6 to 7 feet long and between 400 and 600 pounds. The two species—cousins to the giant sperm whales of "Moby Dick" fame— are very similar in appearance. Sperm whales are the second most common cetacean to strand in U.S. waters, after bottlenose dolphins, according to Schofield.

When possible, marine mammal experts normally prefer not to allow a stranded animal to return to the sea without inspection, and they are available to rush to the scene to make medical assessments, he said.

"When these animals strand, they normally strand for a reason," Schofield said. "It sounded like this animal was traumatized and in shock. They normally live far offshore, and they live alone. When they commit to stranding, they normally die. But if it appears they could survive transport, we can try long-term rehabilitation."

Schofield said that success rates are generally not good with sperm whales, but that he has participated in a rehabilitation resulting in the release of a whale back into the ocean.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.