A baby bowhead whale got stuck in low water at the bay of Sea of Okhotsk in Russia’s Far East, the operation to rescue the sea mammal is being overseen by Natural Resources Minister Sergey Donskoy.
The whale’s misfortune made headlines across the Russian internet after it was reported by famous travel blogger Sergey Dolya, who is currently visiting Russia’s Khabarovsk Region.
According to the blogger, the animal entered the river mouth at the Bolshoy Shantar Island in the Sea of Okhotsk overnight, but failed to leave before the outgoing tide and got stuck.
The animal apparently made its way into the river mouth in an attempt to flee from orcas, which were attacking him.
The whale wounded himself in fruitless attempts to break free, the blogger said in a post on his LiveJournal page.
“We’re all worried and thinking how to save the whale. There’s lot of ideas, but so far we can’t realize any of them. We’re just sitting and watching it from the shore,” he wrote.
Dolya contacted scientists in Moscow, who looked at the photos and said that the whale was “not even a calf, but a baby.”
They estimated its length at around 5 or 6 meters, as fully grown bowhead whales reach between 14 to 18 meters.
Shortly after pictures and videos of the troubled sea creature surfaced on various social media, Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry announced on its website that the operation to rescue the whale was under way.
“The head of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Sergey Donskoy, is keeping the situation under his personal control. He’s being constantly updated on the rescue work.
According to the minister, specialists are now working out options for returning the animal to its natural habitat. It’s planned to be done during the night tide,” it said in a statement.
The ministry estimated the animal to be a fully grown whale with a length of 13 meters.
“The experts hope that they’ll be able to return the whale to the big water and escort him to the safe distance away from shore to avoid a meeting with the orcas,” the ministry said.
Water is being currently poured on the animal in order to keep it hydrated and to ease its suffering.
