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By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
In Punaluu, Patty Hindman looks for the baby whale through
her binoculars. Witnesses said that the whale beached itself
six times before heading to deeper water.

Confused whale
towed out to sea

Stuck on a beach and then a
reef, a baby whale is sedated
and taken to sea

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By Pat Gee
Star-Bulletin

An 8-foot-long baby humpback whale that was stuck in the sand at Punaluu yesterday was helped to deep water by the National Marine Fisheries Service and apparently swam away.

NMFS officials didn't see the whale this morning "so we're hoping all is well," said Delores Clark, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A team from the state Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement watched for the whale today.

Though the whale had suffered some scrapes from coral, the injuries appeared to be superficial, Clark said.

Joe Arceneaux, of the fisheries service, said the whale had been stuck in about 6 feet of water on the reef, and its body was about 6 feet high.

By Barry Markowitz, Special to the Star-Bulletin
Brad Ryon of the National Marine Fisheries Protected Species
Division, with beard, second from left, and state officers readied
a plan to save a baby humpback trapped within the reef at
Punaluu. The plan changed when put into action, but
the result was a successful rescue.

The whale was "very, very young" and probably "scared or sick ... or lost," he said. "Young whales are usually rambunctious. Maybe it got too far away from mom" and got confused, Arceneaux added.

The whale was pushed out to sea several times by about a dozen people yesterday morning, then got hung up on the reef for a few hours. As daylight waned yesterday, a team of veterinarians and biologists decided to sedate the whale and tow it to deeper water, using a harness with floats, Clark said. "When it came out of sedation, just before dark, it appeared to swim off and be OK."

Officials were hoping the lost whale belonged to a pod of whales they saw yesterday evening, she said.

Howard Sewell, who runs the Punaluu Art Gallery, said the whale got stuck "right up in the sand" around 10 a.m. yesterday. Leigh Ching, owner of Ching's Punaluu Store next door, was one of 10 to 15 people who went into the ocean to try to help. "Poor thing, I feel so sorry for him. It looked young; maybe it was looking for his mom."

By Barry Markowitz, Special to the Star-Bulletin
Marine animal veterinarian Gregg Levine and Stephanie Vlachos
prepare one of four valium-filled hypodermic needles which would
be used to sedate the baby whale before it was harnessed
and pulled to a cut in the reef yesterday.

Sewell said it took only about 10 minutes for the whale to be pushed off the beach, but "then it turned around and came back in."

Richard Kerr, a tourist from Illinois, said the whale "kept looping back in (to shore) about five or six times." He and his wife, Mary, were driving toward Turtle Bay when she saw "this big black thing on the beach" and stopped.

They tracked the whale for a mile as it made its way north until it got stuck on the reef fronting Kaya's Store, he said.

The Kerrs were still watching the whale until the late afternoon "to see how they're going to get it back out there," he said.

Yesterday, fisheries service biologist John Henderson said three boats would try to guide the whale beyond the reef, since it wasn't finding its own way out. "The tides are low and the surf's up. It's too shallow out there," for the whale to swim away, he said.

Anyone who sees a stranded animal should call the fisheries service at 1-800-853-1964 and provide specific information about the location and type of animal.

"And don't get in the water with it," Clark said, pointing out that could be dangerous.

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Star-Bulletin reporter Helen Altonn contributed to this report.