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Friends rescue stranded whale
By JAMES THORNER © St. Petersburg Times, published August 24, 1998 Randy and Amy Tolle of New Port Richey were cruising the inlets in their airboat when they found the stranded gray-colored whale. They mistook the animal for a discarded tire. The Tolles called their friends, John and Mary Mosley of Hudson. Together, the couples spent the next four hours wading waist deep in the mucky channel, holding the whale upright lest it tip over and drown. Not that the pygmy whale is a small fry. The animal, a male, measured nearly 7 feet long and 250 pounds and boasted rows of teeth. But to hear Mary Mosley tell the story, she was cuddling a big baby. "It never showed its teeth. It opened its eyes a few times and just lay there quietly in our arms," she said Sunday. Rescue workers from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium rushed to the scene, off San Diego Drive in Hudson. Four people were needed to move the whale to a stretcher. They hoisted the animal onto the bow of Mosley's airboat, which took the whale to the docks. There it was loaded aboard a former newspaper delivery van for the trip to Mote Marine Aquarium in Sarasota. "We put him on foam pads in the van. Then we picked up ice on the way to cool it down," said Chris Koberna, head of animal care at the Clearwater aquarium. Aquarium workers in Sarasota have named the whale "Pasco" after its place of rescue. "Richey" was considered, after New Port Richey, but the aquarium used that name for a rescued sperm whale four years ago. "At first everyone wanted to name the whale Monica," said Virginia Haley, spokesperson for Mote Aquarium. "But that just wouldn't do." Pasco is still in critical condition, Haley said, surviving on mushed squid it eats through a tube. Several superficial shark bites covered its body and biologists were giving it doses of antibiotics. Why the whale, which normally lives in deep gulf water, ventured inland is anybody's guess. Haley speculates the animal fell ill, became disoriented and separated from its pod. Of the dozens of sea otters, turtles, dolphins and whales the aquarium has saved over the past 10 years, only three have been pygmy killer whales, Haley said. The Tolles and the Mosleys weathered their dramatic whale rescue, sunburned but sound. On Sunday, the Tolles dashed off to a Devil Rays baseball game. The Mosleys were trying to take it easy after Saturday's adventure. "The adrenalin kept us going while we held the whale," Mary Mosley said. "But we were wiped out later."
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UDSON -- Two Pasco County families rescued a pygmy killer whale struggling for life Saturday in a channel off the Gulf of Mexico.
