12 ft. whale succumbs at WCB after trapped in net

Jan 16, 2015 News

Fishermen attempt to settle the mammal in a makeshift pond along the foreshore yesterday

West Berbicians were greeted with an unusual sight yesterday as a 12-foot whale became trapped in the nets of fisherman, Sannel D’Aguiar, of Plantation Ross, West Coast Berbice (WCB).

Sadly, the mammal died shortly after 16:00 hrs yesterday and was transported to the city by a team comprising personnel from the Ministry of Public Works; Environment Protection Agency (EPA), Iwokrama; National Sea Defence Board; Ministry of Natural Resources; Ministry of Agriculture; National Wildlife Management Committee (NWMC) and University of Guyana Biology Department.

Earlier, attempts by fisherman were made to preserve the mammal along the Number 37, WCB foreshore until help arrived. A makeshift pond was dug along the foreshore while fishermen awaited assistance, in order to decide the best method of releasing the mammal back into the Atlantic Ocean, but D’Aguiar said that it could have been that the muddy, thick waters could have aided in the animal’s unfortunate demise.

D’Aguiar related that he started to pick up his seine around midnight on Wednesday and reached up with the animal around one o’clock in the morning, and wasn’t certain what it was, “ so I waited for day clean.”

He discovered that it was a whale around 05:30 hrs. “I tried to cut the net and save it…It died because of the mud water,” he opined.

Since it was alive for much of the day yesterday, the animal had to be kept in the deeper parts of the waters until help arrived.

Only last month a 40-foot sperm whale washed up at the Kitty Foreshore in Georgetown, in the vicinity of the Russian Embassy. That animal also died.