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Alumni & Student StoriesA Kayaker’s View of a Whale RescueBy Chris Slesar, M.A. Environment and Community, 1999
When I arrived at Sunken Meadow Beach to launch my kayak, police turned me away. "Sorry, the beach is closed for today," the officer said. “We are only letting officials for the rescue access the beach." Media vehicles from Boston, Providence and Hartford cued up at the small parking area and trucks with official-looking logos from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and National Wildlife Federation parked illegally on the side of the road. To sidestep the mess, I launched my kayak about a half-mile south at Cooks Brook Beach. When I first spotted the beaching site, volunteer rescuers from the Cape Cod Stranding Network had formed a bucket brigade to keep a couple dozen of the nearly 40 pilot whales wet. The whales were motionless, silent and looked dead. The dead whales were easy to identify, though. They bore the word “DEAD" on their skin in orange paint. "She has no corneal response," I overheard someone say. “Let’s get the sodium pentathol ready." The scene was grim and I quickly regretted paddling there. The morose mood picked up in direct proportion to the rate of the incoming tide. Rescuers said they hoped to get the whales afloat in about an hour, when the tide was due back in. A Paddle-splashing RescueAs the water reached the living whales, they started to move and vocalize. It sent tingles up and down my spine. The woman coordinating the rescue asked me and two other kayakers to stick around. Their intent was to usher the whales out to deeper water, then drive them out to open water. She explained that if one or two whales broke through the line of rescuers, we should get in front of them with our kayaks and splash our paddles. That should scare them in the opposite direction to deep, safe water. I counted nine of these 8- to 16-foot-long, 1,800-pound, jet-black whales at the side of my kayak. …We jumped at the opportunity. The rescuers got the whales afloat and pointed to open water. Despite their splashing and shouting, however, the whales just milled about. Occasionally, one or two would dash toward shore. The kayaks intercepted them. Splashing our paddles or banging on our decks encouraged them to rejoin the pod. The whales, however, continued to mill about. After about 30 minutes of this, the rescuers were called out of the water because the tide was still coming in. They were up to their necks and it was getting too dangerous for them to continue. To make matters even more tense, a squall was heading right for us. The water was flat as a mirror, the temperature was at least 95 degrees and the horizon was barely visible for the haze. When the rain did hit, luckily we were spared lightning and thunder. Still, splashes from the heavy drops looked like thorns pointing up angrily from the water. The effort now rested on three official rescue boats and a growing flotilla of kayaks. We were the border collies who tried to encourage the whales to move to open water. At one point, the rescue’s director told me to “get right in their faces" with my kayak to see if that would motivate them. I maneuvered my boat right up to the densest group in the pod – inches from their snouts – and banged on my deck. I counted nine of these 8- to 16-foot-long, 1,800-pound, jet-black whales at the side of my kayak (although I’ll concede my ability to count was severely compromised by the fact that I was this close to all these whales).
‘The Big Guy’ Gets AngryThat’s when the whale that became known as The Big Guy lifted his head out of the water right next to the cockpit of my kayak, opened his mouth (which reminded me that pilot whales have teeth) and blew a rich, salty, tangy spray from the blowhole on the back of his head. The fishy smelling mist rained down on me and cooled me off. A voice nudged me back to reality. It repeated itself a number of times before I recognized the words. “He’s pissed. Get the hell out of there!" she informed me. Surely these whales could have smashed me and my skinny little boat to oblivion, but they did not. The whales patiently and deliberately drove the boats back into a salt marsh. I saw only one boat get bumped, and this was because the water was getting too shallow for the whales to stay completely submerged. The whales affirmed their reputation for being gentle animals, doggedly determined to get to the other side of the meddling humans. Their vocalizations were staggering. The paddlers were, for the most part, silent. The whales surrounded us with their sounds: a combination of clicking, chattering and squeaking. Somebody likened the squeaking to that of many sneakers scuffing on a basketball court. I actually could feel the vibrations of their voices through my boat’s thin hull. After awhile, it became obvious our efforts were folly. At one point, the Coast Guard was called to break up a flotilla of power boats that formed a fence between the whales and open water. The whales just kept driving us back into the shallow waters of the salt flats. By about 5 p.m., it looked like these whales were going to end their journey in a salt marsh managed by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. No one was willing to give up, though. The official word came from the coordinator of the Cape Cod Stranding Network that the rescue attempt would be called off. The whales started to beach themselves for the third and final time in three days. Two pulled themselves on a hummock near me. I drove the front half of my kayak right up on the grass in front of the pair and pounded on the hull. They slipped back into the water and rejoined the pod, only to die some 50 yards away in the company of their companions. By about 5:30 p.m., they began beaching themselves at the end of the salt marsh and word was that veterinarians were en route to euthanize them.
They Stick TogetherNobody is sure why pilot whales beach themselves, although they are fiercely social and will stick together to the bitter end if one is sick or injured. This social behavior made hunting these animals extremely easy. Whale hunters would herd pilot whales to their slaughter on beaches. Wellfleet Harbor, a stone’s throw from our rescue attempt, used to run red with whale blood during these hunts. A hundred years later, the species that drove many whales to the brink of extinction attempted the exact opposite. We failed this time. But this event, one that drew the world’s attention for two days in the summer of 2002, can serve as a wake-up call. When face to face with these animals, humans care deeply — that is certain. We can, and should, reflect this caring in our political, economic and policy decisions. In the long run, this is where we can make the biggest difference.
Chris Slesar: Exploring How Humans Connect with all That’s Wild I hoped to maintain some sort of engagement with wildness and wildlife in my career. Since graduation, I have undertaken and developed several environmental initiatives in my work in the environmental section at the Vermont Agency of Transportation. I have coordinated efforts to study and develop approaches to mitigate and reduce collisions with wildlife, whether they are moose or wood frogs. I also have developed approaches to manage roadside grassland habitat, which is becoming increasingly important with the decline of farms and the increase in suburban sprawl. I have found in my work that, almost without exception, people are interested in somehow connecting with wildness. For example, I have been working to install and maintain kestrel nesting boxes on the backs of some of Vermont’s interstate highway signs. Kestrels are small, colorful falcons once called sparrow hawks. This small initiative has generated tremendous enthusiasm and involvement within the agency and the outside communities. As for the whales, I was just in the right place at the right time. Overall, I have been lucky enough in my life — whether on vacation on Cape Cod or on the job — to make some of those connections happen. —Chris Slesar Are you an Antioch alumnus or student with a story worth sharing on this website? Let us hear from you. Drop an e-mail to Annie Beckmann, Antioch’s writer-at-large, at abeckmann@antiochseattle.edu. |
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For the second time in two days, a pod of pilot whales had beached in Wellfleet Harbor on the bay side of Cape Cod.
In a feckless attempt to communicate with the whales, I stopped my banging and splashing for a moment. “Turn around," I whispered, “you’re going to die if you don’t." I was out of earshot from the crew from Woods Hole and NOAA, so I figured it couldn’t hurt.
In two days, this pod of 60 whales beached themselves three times. The first time was in Dennis, south of Wellfleet. Of those 60, 14 died and 46 were released. But the next morning, all 46 whales were beached again off Lieutenant Island, which is when I came upon the scene. By the time high tide came for our rescue attempt, 16 of those whales were already dead. We worked with 28 whales, all of whom died or were euthanized in the salt marsh by the end of that day.
In my studies in Antioch’s Environment and Community Program, I took great interest in exploring the relationship humans have with wildness. It is a complex relationship that is often times humorous, almost always interesting and too often tragic. I firmly believe that relationship is essential to our well-being as a species.