Vets Euthanize Sickly Whale

TAMPA - The sperm whale drifting in the shallows near the mouth of Tampa Bay looked thin, even at nearly 17 tons. It didn't appear to be injured, but it grew sicklier as the hours passed.

The veterinarians and scientists who had been monitoring it since Sunday would not be able to save it. They could end its suffering Tuesday morning, however, thanks to a one-of-a-kind dart gun that arrived in Tampa just as residents welcomed 2008.

"It's the only one in the world," Jamison Smith said of the gun, which can shoot up to 60 cc of medicine through a whale's thick blubber from 60 feet away.

Smith, coordinator of the large whale disentanglement program for the National Marine Fisheries Service, flew in from Gloucester, Mass., with the gun late Monday night. It had been used just once before, in May, when he shot a mother and calf humpbacks with antibiotics. The whales had swum 90 miles inland near Sacramento, Calif., after being gashed by a boat propeller. They eventually returned to the ocean.

Although this story's ending wasn't as happy, there was comfort in the fact that the sperm whale's confusion and pain could be eased.

"It's obviously not a happy time on the boat. It's a tense time," Smith said. "We're very dedicated to helping the species, but we want to make sure the animal isn't suffering."

Smith shot the whale, an older juvenile about 25 feet long, with sedatives about 10 a.m. Tuesday. Veterinarians were then able to get close enough to draw blood samples and inject it with medicines to end its life.

The whale's body was towed by boat to Fort DeSoto Beach, where it arrived at about 2:30 p.m. to a crowd of curious onlookers. A backhoe was used to slowly haul the huge carcass ashore. Scientists on the beach would perform a necropsy, said Laura Engleby, a Bay area marine biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"A specialized team was already there, ready and waiting," she said. "They'll be taking as many tissue samples as they can to understand what may have contributed" to its illness.

After the necropsy, the carcass would be buried, she said.

Although sperm whales usually are not seen near Florida's coastline, one stranded itself in the Keys in July 2006. That whale, which was about 35 feet long, was sick and bleeding in the shallows near Big Pine Key. Sharks attacked it and it struggled for each breath, but marine experts could do nothing to help it. They weren't able to sedate it enough to get close safely.

"We have talked about that quite a bit," Smith said of the sad tale. "They didn't have this gun. It was not available then."

The device was manufactured by Paxarms, a New Zealand company. Smith is credited with playing an instrumental role in its development.