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Beached whale offers rare look for researchersBy CHRISTINA HEADRICK © St. Petersburg Times, published October 16, 1998 Marine biologists, excited about a chance to study the animal, dubbed it Pumbaa after the chubby, warm-hearted warthog from The Lion King. "A lot of our volunteers just thought he looked like the warthog," said Mary Kmetz, a spokeswoman for Mote. Similar to the tusked Disney character, Pumbaa the whale has two teeth jutting out from his pointy bottom jaw, which are the signature characteristic of the rarely studied species. At 131/2-feet long and roughly 1,600 pounds, Pumbaa was rescued Tuesday by staff from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium off a pier in Redington Shores. He seemed to be doing better Thursday, though there is still a great chance that he will die, Kmetz said. If Pumbaa survives, he could be the first Gervais' beaked whale ever to be rescued and released back into the wild, said James Mead, a marine mammalogist at the Smithsonian Institution, who has studied beaked whales for 20 years. Most of what is known comes from animals that have gotten stranded or washed up dead on shore -- a total of 128 since they were first identified in the 1840s. Gervais' whales, also known as Gulf Stream beaked whales, don't often wind up on shore because they prefer deep waters where they can hold their breath for an hour and perhaps dive as deep as a mile down, Mead said. "It would just be beautiful to attach a small satellite tag to that animal," Mead said. "It would yield a lot of data that we have absolutely no notion of now. Where would he go? How long he would spend diving? You could fill volumes with the things we don't know." In recent years on the Atlantic Coast, Gervais' beaked whales have been beaching themselves more frequently, as many as two to four times a year, Mead said. Scientists don't know what that means. The Clearwater Marine Aquarium has recovered three such whales in the past three years. Mote in Sarasota found one beaked whale over a decade ago. A week ago, two beaked whales were stranded in shallow water off Key West, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. Swimmers pushed them back out to sea. One returned to shore and died. It's possible that the second whale swam north until it reached Redington Shores, Kmetz said. Pumbaa seemed to be less dehydrated Thursday, thanks to being fed Pedialyte on Wednesday, and blood tests seemed to show his kidneys were working better. "Hopefully, we're getting back into a normal range," Kmetz said, although Mote staff don't know what's normal for a species that's rarely studied alive. Marine biologists have been guessing what to do and treating Pumbaa similarly to other whales and dolphins. Pumbaa has declined to eat whole squid, but volunteers managed to give him some ground-up squid through a tube placed down his throat Thursday morning. Thursday afternoon, he ate six fish placed in his mouth. But the whale refused to swim on his own. Scientists don't know how many Gervais' beaked whales exist in the wild, Mead said, but they suspect humans are probably threatening their future because the whales often wind up dead in fishing nets. Beaked whales, which get their name from their pointy dolphin-like heads, were one of the first modern groups of whales to evolve, showing up at least 30-million years ago, Mead said. The more that is known about them, the more that can be done to prevent them from disappearing, Mead said. For example, photos and videos of Pumbaa may help biologists identify other whales of his species at sea, so people will know better where the animals are living. The Mote aquarium, at 1600 Ken Thompson Parkway, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults and $6 for children. As long as Pumbaa remains in a large lagoon, the public can see him.
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ARASOTA -- A rare Gervais' beaked whale recovering from an unknown ailment at Mote Marine Laboratory was given a squid milkshake and a name Thursday.
