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When will I free my ‘Willy’..?

Who won’t dream to be a boy playing with the cutest of all animals, a whale called Willy (Kiko)..? I admit I did.

I saw my first whale, a badly decomposed Caracas of dead Hump Backed Whale, way back in my school times 1990, when a Forty Eight Feeter dead specimen was washed ashore on Dumas that is the nearest and most visited sea shore of Surat, situated on the mouth of the Gulf of Khambhat. I actively took part in cleaning the skelaton and arranging it as a show piece for the local Municipal Corporation Zoo. I was good at chemical technology in my school and I knew exactly what should I treat it to clean out flesh and clean the skeleton of its oil. The specimen skeleton is on display in the Surat zoo till date. Later in around 1999, we saw another half damaged dead body, which looked like a whale from size, but we couldn’t determine the species as the body was badly rotten, but it had came way in side the Tapi river estuary, almost in side the town. I have photographs of that one.

In my earlier reports I have mentioned the exact geographical location of the place, when I had reported our rescue of Marine Turtles. The gulf has Indo Pacific Hump backed dolphins as regular visitors which penetrate deep inside the Gulf, right upto the Mahi River estuary, from where the reports came of seven dolphin that got stranded and killed in February 2006. Otherwise also we have been spotting these Dolphins almost regularly in the Gulf at the time of our Winter Water Fowl Census on shores of estuaries of all the rivers of South Gujarat.

We have been crying at the top of our voices to the local authorities, during the Public Environmental Hearings for Industrial projects coming up in the area, that this region if so rich in the Marine Wild Life that we have all the elements to make it a marine reserve. Mangroves, Dolphins, Whales, Saw Fishes, Marine Turtles, Otters, I think the list is quite substantial.

The last and most thrilling and very moving encounter with the whales happened on 6th June 2006, when the local forest guards on Surat Range Office, Mr. Jitubhai with whom I have carried out so many rescues of Birds and Snakes and Turtles, called me up in the afternoon, around 2.30 pm, that there is a big fish stranded on the Dumas Seashore. PRAYAS Volunteer Shakti, who was rescuing Stripe Keel Backs, three of them, on the other side of the city, on hearing my call, immediately bagged the snakes, and started towards Dumas. While he reached, the local Forest with help of local village fishermen had shifted the ‘fish’ to the range forest office complex at Dumas. The fish was dead already when the forest department was called there, but some local lads had said that it was there since morning and it was alive when they had seen it. Anyways, when we reached the site, it was dead and looked like mix bread between a whale and a shark and a dolphin. The body was fresh and so fresh that we could feel that it will just move, but on one side of the body there was a deep cut and open, and one round injury that was probably healing. It was evening by the time we could decide that we had to identify it and study and also determine the cause of death, post mortem was the answer. The local government veterinary surgeon would shut his office at 5.30 but on our call he would wait till 6.00 pm. The Conservator of Forests Surat Circle Mr. R. J. Asari who had also rushed to the site and was rightly confused in identifying it. He has a waste experience in the first even Marine National Park of India, That of Jamnagar Gujarat, told me that he is seeing such an animal for the first time and he concluded to not to jump on any conclusion with identification of what definitely was a mammal.

It was late to perform a PM in the govt polyclinic, so we immediately decided to preserve it and arranged for big slabs of ice to keep the body from farther deterioration, and to our satisfaction it had worked. The local forest officials did a wonderful job to preserve it in ice and monitoring it through out the night.

The news was immediately in press and almost all the news papers contacted us for the identification and we also gave them the incomplete identification that we were confused and we felt it was somewhere between a dolphin and a whale but looked like a porpoise shark..! The day ended with excitement and resentment that we are looking at something for the first time and sadly its dead.

At around 6.45 am in the morning next day, my mobile rang up and there was a voice of a lady anxiously asking “What have you done to the ‘Fish’.?. Just getting up I answered, ‘We have preserved it in ice.” “Thank god”, she replied, and said: “ I am Dipani Sutaria, a Marine Biologist from James Cook University, Australia, currently on vacation in Ahmedabad, and this ‘Fish’ is not a Dolphin nor a Shark, it looks like a Whale to me, and please if you wait till I reach then I would like to examine it.” “ When can you reach?” I asked as Ahmedabad is at least 5 hours from Surat, and she said: “ I am already out of my home and looking out for a direct taxi to Surat..!!”. Okay I said and took a gamble, as it was only 7.00 am and I had to ask the C.F Mr. Asari’s permission to wait that long. But I told her that we would wait, and while taking first sip of my coffee, I wondered how on earth she was able to contact me on my cell?

After calculating that she would take at least noon to reach, I arranged for some more ice and this time doubled the quantity, four big slabs. Fortunately the C.F Mr. Asari is also very much interested in Marine Life, that when I told him the story at 9.45 am he agreed immediately and asked me for any help I wanted. He is a gem of a person and a good Forest Officer. The Ice reached there in time, despite of difficulties as the area is far from where we can usually get this much quantity of Ice.

The Marine Biologist called me up at 12.30 pm when she was about to enter Surat and we had a quick meeting at C.F’s residence during his lunch hour, and coincidently the lady knew the C.F as she had worked under him in the Gulf of Kutchh for a project when he was the C.F at Marine National Park Jamnagar. We had a brief discussion and on looking at the resource material that she had brought, we agreed on Dwarf Sperm Whale (Kogia Simus (Owen)), but not concluded on it as we were yet to see it and Dwarf Sperm Whale had no sightings or records or data so far in this region. Even IUCN Status is “Insufficiently known”.

We immediately rushed to the site again and when we opened the ice covers, Dipani almost jumped with joy that it was indeed a Dwarf Sperm Whale. We were seeing it for the first time, she was seeing it for the first time and as per her information, it was very very strange as there is no record of this species in this entire region.

We took all the measurement as per the protocol and the guidance by the Marine Biology books (name mentioned under), and then it was decided to dissect the carcass and study for the possible cause of death and then to bury it as per the Forest Department norms.

Skin, Otolith and other samples were taken and the examination of all the organs were carried out by Ms Dipani and myself, and we apparently found nothing wrong with lungs, stomach contents and other parts. The blubber thickness was commendable, and while we were finished with dissection, the carcass was buried in a well-defined manner to retrieve skeleton for future study and display at the possible marine ecology study center that the C.F Mr.Asari is planning at Dumas. We promised Mr. Asari that we would do the processing of the skeleton as we have the experience of cleaning and arranging a 48 ft. whale many years ago.

After a full days exercise, I remembered and asked the enthusiastic marine biologist who is actually pursuing her Ph. D from Australia, how she got my number, and she said, that the name “PRAYAS WILD RESCUE” with my name in the Times of India that morning, with the photograph, she connected internet, searched for that name and landed up on our website in a flash and got my cell number. This was amazing, the modern technology, and moreover, and the most incredible part of the story, the Dwarf Sperm Whale reaching up till the shallow coast of Surat, in the Gulf of Khambhat, as what we could learn from the literature that Ms. Dipani gave us, these whales live in the deep diving continental shelf, which was way away from surat sea coast.

Our future plans of Marine Ecology Center must be speeded up as now we have very rare species coming up to visit us and we are able to do very little for them. Hope someday we will be able to save these beautiful creatures and realize my dream of my “Free Willy”!

References:

Marine Mammals of The World.
Small Cetacean Dissection and Sampling: A Field Guide
By: Thomas Jefferson, Albert C. Myrick, Jr., Susan J. Chivers
La Jolla Laboratory, SWFSC,
National Marine Fisheries Services
NOAA, National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration,
U. S. Dept. of Commerce.
Currently as: Marine Mammal Research Program, Texas, U. S. A.