Rescuers save stranded whale at Durness
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Rescuers battled to save a stranded pilot whale which came ashore earlier this week at a Sutherland beauty spot.
Among those helping refloat the animal at Sango in Durness yesterday was a Highland Council access ranger.
A post on the access rangers' social media said: “People on the beach kept the whale wet, tipping buckets of water on it until the coastguard and a marine mammal expert arrived."
“They lifted it onto a tarp and dragged it back into the sea. The operation took over two hours and as far as we know it safely swam away.”
Pilot whales are known to be prone to stranding.
A pod of pilot whales beached in July, 2011, at the Kyle of Durness in what is believed to have been Scotland's largest ever such event. Some 19 of the 70 whales died.
Four large bombs exploded underwater by the Royal Navy were later blamed by government scientists for the mass stranding.
A long-delayed report by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said that the noise from the explosions could have damaged the hearing and navigational abilities of the whales, causing them to beach and die.
It is also thought that the sonar waves can frighten deep-diving whales, forcing them to surface too quickly and leading to symptoms similar to decompression sickness, also known as the bends, in humans.
But a spokesman for the MoD has said the Navy does all it can to ensure sonar is not damaging marine life.
"The Royal Navy takes its responsibilities in safeguarding the environment very seriously and, when at all possible, operators take avoidance actions should animals be detected before or during sonar operations," he said.
