Ocean Sentry
(From thewest.com.au)- A stranded whale put down in Jurien Bay yesterday took at least 15 minutes to die after wildlife officers detonated explosives charges into its brain and shot it. The 15-tonne humpback did not die instantly as hoped when the first charge exploded just after 5pm.
An officer then shot the 10m-long whale several times in the head and, when it continued to thrash its tail, detonated a second charge about 15 minutes after the first.
The killing was condemned by former whale rescuer L“I’m disappointed that they went ahead with it,” Mr Levy, who ran the Whale Rescue Centre in Victoria in the 1980s, said. “Hearing that the whale thrashed . . . after the implosion concerns me a great deal.”
The veteran animal campaigner said the killing sent the “wrong message” to the world about Australia’s treatment of whales and could encourage other countries to kill whales rather than rescue them.
Mr Levy said the whale, thought to be two or three years old, should have been towed out to sea in the hope that it would recover or should have been made comfortable and allowed to die naturally.
“(It) is a bit like a Japanese harpoon going into one and then thrashing around for five, 10, 15 minutes in the ocean,” he said.
A week ago, the whale was seen rolling on the reef before coming to rest a few metres from the shore. aurie Levy, who compared it to a Japanese harpooning.
