December 9, 2014 by HillenSean

Whale sightings off Donegal coast encourage educational and tourism efforts

Approaching within 30 feet of a minky whale out on the Atlantic takes courage – but such is his concern for the welfare of local marine life that’s exactly what Gareth Doherty did recently.

With the sighting of so many such baleen whales off the northwest Donegal coast over the last few weeks, Doherty, a skilled seaman (he manages Selkie Sailing in Gaoth Dobhair) and knowledgeable environmentalist, realized it would be a prime opportunity to try to identify them and monitor their movements and thus understand better the thriving whale population off Irish coastal waters.

“It is only by recording the twenty-four cetacean species recorded thus far in Irish waters that we can protect them,” he said. “The fact that so many are now visiting us is wonderful news.”

Doherty also believes that greater numbers of such healthy marine animals locally means greater opportunities to both educate people about this vital segment of sea-life and strengthen environmental tourism efforts throughout Donegal.

Here is yet another local cultural tourism-cum-educational project worthy of financial support. Udaras na Gaeltachta, the state-sponsored economic support group in the area, has refused to pay for much-needed equipment for Selkie Sailing.

Readers of this blog and of a series of articles I penned for the Donegal News will remember Gareth for the sterling work he and others did to bring important publicity about the plight of a pod of stranded whales at Ballyness beach in Falcarragh earlier this year.

Not only did Gareth and colleagues highlight the stark inadequacies, both in equipment and training, of the National Parks and Wildlife Service to deal with such incidents (it has since become known that Donegal wildlife officials didn’t even take sample tissue from any of the dead whales to ascertain what may have stranded them and led to their slow suffocation) but they also banded together to organize marine lifesaving training programs for people that continue even now.

Visiting my Bun na Leaca home recently, Gareth said his intention was also to launch a series of educational visits to local schools to make presentations about the importance of marine life around our shores. It is an excellent idea and there seems no more qualified and enthusiastic a person to host such a program than Gareth.

Minke whales grow to about nine meters in length, weigh around 10 tons and can live about 50 years. Their bodies are dark grey to black on the back and lightening to white on the belly and undersides of the flippers. There are often areas of light grey on the flanks, one just above and behind the flippers and the other behind the head. Those in the northern hemisphere usually have a diagonal white band on the upper surface of each flipper. Smallest of the seven great whales, minkes often enter estuaries, bays and inlets and feed around headlands and small islands.

Updates can be checked on Selkie Sailing.

The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group assisted with local training programs.

July 25, 2014 by HillenSean

West Donegal whale protection group formed as threats to human health resurface

Following an often emotional public meeting held at Teac Jack in Glassagh earlier this week, a wildlife protection group has been formed in west Donegal to lobby for government policy changes towards stranded marine animals and to promote specialized training.

The ‘North West Whale & Dolphin Support Group,’ which was established at the Tuesday evening meeting, follows concerns by many local people about the treatment of a pod of 13 pilot whales that were left stranded on Ballyness beach near Falcarragh, which all died of slow suffocation after five days. It is the 13^th such stranding this year in Donegal, including a sperm whale stranded off Machaire Rabhartaigh beach. Around 32 other whales died off Rutland Island two years ago and were cut up and transported to Cavan where they were incinerated.

Meanwhile, concerns have arisen as to what caused the mysterious deaths of all the whales amid a recent rise in the numbers of marine animals being stranded off Donegal’s coast. And that, whatever it is, may also be a hazard to human health.

A stranded pilot whale struggles for life at Ballyness beach near Falcarragh, west Donegal. (Photo by Antonia Leitner).

Chairperson of the meeting, Amanda Doherty, with Selkie Sailing, who has also launched a petition that has attracted more than 230 signatures on the issue, said she was pleased by decisions those attending had made together.

“We want to raise community awareness and have the current policy regarding cetacean strandings in the area reviewed,” she said. “It should be a more flexible policy to allow for the particulars of different situations that occur. This is best practice according international standards and Ireland should follow it.”

Some people at the meeting – many of whom tried their best to save the dying whales – became emotional as they described the traumatic situation at Ballyness beach and the agony of the cetaceans as they slowly died of suffocation in shallow water.

Members of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), led by Dave Duggan and Pat Vaughan, decided “to let nature takes its course” rather than try to save the whales or apply euthanasia to reduce the whales’ suffering. They also did not ask the coastguard for assistance to bring the whales out to sea, as has happened in other parts of Ireland. The state-funded Donegal county veterinary office under the leadership of Charles Kealey, chief veterinary officer, has also come under criticism for refusing to get involved in any way to help the whales, including making sure the mammals were dead before they were buried. (In contrast, see photo below of a cetacean (dolphin) being treated more humanely in another part of Ireland, with vets and the coastguard involved).

Westport-based Irish Coastguard assist with a stranded Common Dolphin which could not be refloated. A Mayo vet administered an injection to humanely end its suffering. Photo by Shay Fennelly

Pearse Doherty Sinn Fein TD for west Donegal, who has submitted a number of formal questions over the last week in the Dail to Ministers regarding the treatment of stranded whales and other cetaceans, attended the meeting and gave his advice on the best way forward for the group. Doherty said it was important the new group work with current organisations such as the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and suggested a two-pronged approach – making sure policy at the IWDG matched international standards, and the establishment of ‘first responders’ in the local area, recognized by the NPWS and IWDG – people who could take the lead in developing situations.

The newly-formed ‘North West Whale & Dolphin Support Group’ decided to hold monthly meetings and invite Simon Berrow, founder of the IWDG, to provide specialized training for members on how to best help stranded whales and other cetaceans and to meet with a small working group on the same day to discuss further action. Clare-based Berrow is a full-time lecturer at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology teaching on the Applied Freshwater and Marine degree course and project manager of the Shannon Dolphin and Wildlife Foundation.

After being contacted about the meeting, Berrow told the author of this blog, “We are delighted to hear of the formation of a local group. We look forward to working closely with them to prepare a better response to stranded cetaceans in the future and also to encourage local recording.”

Offshore toxic waste dumping? Military submarine activity?

At the same time, concerns regarding the health hazards to human life – as well as marine – from toxic dumping at sea and military submarine activity and experiments that may have caused the strandings have resurfaced locally.

Oceans that become graveyards for poisonous debris that pose dangers to human as well as marine life.

International regulations state that discharges of waste material – often poisonous by nature – should not be made within a certain distance of any landmass, according to the Seas at Risk. But who’s watching? Some major ports have cleaning facilities such as Edinburgh, Belfast and Dublin, but this costs money so some incorrigible corporations say ‘why bother’? As the coast of Donegal is in direct line of most transAtlantic ocean traffic between Europe and the Americas, the amount of waste dumped offshore is probably immense, one respected scientist saying ‘enough to create mountains under the sea.’ Much of this material contains cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens) such as manganese, benzene, coal-tar, radium, petrolatum, parabens, vinyl chloride lead and zinc. With recent technological developments, many of these chemicals are in the form of deadly nanoparticles (particles less than the size of a human or animal cell) which, airborne, can then penetrate the cells, causing untold damage.

Nanoparticles: Technological and industrial development has outstripped health research into their potential dangers in everyday foods and consumer products.

Could this be the cause or partial cause of disease in whales and other marine animals? Researchers say they have found large quantities of these chemicals in the whale tissue samples taken and tested. And doctors report larger than normal incidences of human cancer in local people.

In addition, some of the waste is in the form of non-biogradable plastics. Because they don’t dissolve but break up into smaller elements, these plastics have formed what scientists now call ‘plastic islands’ – often the size of countries, one is larger than the US state of Texas, which in itself is 17 times larger than Ireland – that float in our seas, causing disruption to the normal flow of currents. Consequently, the dangers to both human as well as marine animal health is high. For a long time, many people in northwest Donegal have suspected such dumping to have taken place offshore, with menacing results (see further information here).

A special group was established within the last two years at Ionad Naomh Pádraig in Dore by Freddie O’Donnell and Aodán Ó’Gallchoir to examine correlations between high levels of cancer in the Gaeltacht area and dumping of waste in coastal waters nearby. Known as ‘Scaoil Saor ó Ailse’ (Break Free from Cancer’), the group’s public relations officer, Joe Diver, said former local doctor Paddy Delap, said such waste was affecting peoples’ health, particularly cancers of the skin, lung and brain, with an abnormally high level of fatalities. A deep-sea diver then broke his decades-old silence on Raidó na Gaeltachta, describing how he found a large area of the sea bed littered with large black drums with hazardous signage on them in the waters off Tory Island, adding, “We were looking for shipwrecks, went down 40 to 45 metres and came across black drums with green stuff growing on them. There were a few thousand of them. They were heaped in a hill-like structure and had skull and crossbones on them. The diver said the drums would have since disintegrated and their hazardous material dissolved into the ocean off the Gaeltacht coast.”

Military submarine activity and experiments at sea: what are the hazards for Man, Plant and Animal?

Areas affected could include Gaoth Dobhair, Cloughaneely and The Rosses. Calls for greater funding for a more comprehensive analysis were ignored by the relevant authorities, mainly on the instructions of Dublin, some say for economic and political reasons. Further, fearing such research could stir up waves of protest if the result became known, efforts were made by authorities, mainly Fianna Fail, then in power, to trivialize what little had become known. Politics and money trumped peoples’ health and once again the ‘Forgotten County’ was forced to live up to its unfortunate title.

Damage control became main concern for a certain cadre of elite: the party in power in the Dail and its big-business supporters. “This situation has been going on for far too long,” said one medical practitioner who has treated cancer patients in the area. “It is long past time national funding was made available to investigate this situation thoroughly. If it happened in certain other parts of the country, it probably would already have taken place long ago. Surely the deaths of so many marine animals and the high number of cancers affecting people means the issue should be looked at very closely. To some extent, it’s in the hands of ordinary people. They should be lobbying their government representatives by e-mail, phone and letter. If not, nothing will be done.”

Several of the whales at Ballyness beach were found to have lesions, blemishes and lumps on its skin, but National Parks and Wildlife Service officials declined to say where any disease may have originated. As whales are highly social creatures that travel in communities, some say healthy whales may have refused to abandon sick or injured pod members and followed them into shallow water. “We can’t say for certain,” said Pat Vaughan, district conservation officer for the NPWS. “What we do know is that whales and other marine animals can have high levels of certain toxic elements in their bodies.”

July 18, 2014 by HillenSean

Whale-protection group offers complimentary specialized one-day training in west Donegal

Meeting to take place at Teac Jack, Glassagh, this Tuesday (July 22) at 8pm

Officials with the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) have offered to host a complimentary one-day whale life-saving course in Falcarragh, Donegal over the next month for those interested in helping any struggling mammals that become stranded on the county’s beaches.

To avail of this offer, please contact directly Simon Berrow, founder of IWDG at coordinator (at) iwdg.ie

In addition, as part of a larger lobbying campaign for changes to the government’s policy on cetacean strandings, a meeting is being organised at Teac Jack in Glassagh, Donegal, under the auspices of Selkie Sailing and Gareth Doherty, environmentalist and wildlife enthusiast. The meeting is due to take place this Tuesday (July 22) at 8pm.

The generous offer of training from the IWDG comes as the well-respected organization denied vehemently that any call was received from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) for help in dealing with the 12 stranded pilot whales that died at a west Donegal beach last week.

Berrow, who will visit west Donegal this weekend, said, “In contrast, it was someone from our group, Brendan Quinn, who called one of our senior members, Mick O’Connell, who in turn called the wildlife service in Glenveigh and got no response. Mick then called David McNamara, a wildlife service ranger, who went to the scene at Ballyness beach and observed the situation from a nearby hill with hundreds of people gathered around the beached whales. He then waited for them to leave the scene.”

Members of the family of pilot whales stranded off Ballyness beach, Falcarragh, Donegal, last week. Photo courtesy of Selkie Sailing

Voicing his disappointment that Dave Duggan, the acting NPWS regional manager in Donegal, nor Pat Vaughan, a NPWS conservation officer, requested help from the IWDG, Berrow said, “No call was ever received by us asking for our assistance. We would have come up – or at the very least have given advice on the phone. We also have detailed guidance on our website about how to handle a stranded whale situation, which could have been easily accessed and followed. We could have saved some of these whales.”

He also said a statement by Vaughan that nothing could be done for the dying whales but “let nature takes its course” and let the 12 whales die from slow suffocation over five days is ”pure rubbish.”

Another pertinent question to be asked: Where was the state-funded Donegal county veterinary office, run by Charles Kealey, chief veterinary officer, and his staff in all of this? With the local and national media attention the situation received, they would have to have been deaf, dumb and blind not to have heard of the tragedy, and if concerned in any way, should have been at the scene pronto to assist. And definitely, to make sure whales were not buried alive, which expert sources say – without veterinary expertise – could well have happened.

In Berrow’s view, “Everything went pear-shaped because nobody, no group, took ownership of the situation. The wildlife service won’t take responsibility for stranded whales. The IWDG is a small NGO, manned mainly by volunteers but we help where we can. Lack of responsibility at Ballyness, Falcarragh, meant that well-meaning members of the public had to step in. Unfortunately, most of them did not have the proper expertise or training. People like Amanda and Gareth Doherty deserve great credit for what they did, and are still doing, to help protect our marine wildlife.”

Stranded pilot whale at Ballyness beach, Falcarragh, west Donegal (Photo by Antonia Leitner)

Berrow said the IWDG offers training in both identification of cetaceans (mainly whales, dolphins and porpoises), as well as one-day courses on effective methods for dealing with stranded whales “but no-one in Donegal has asked us to do such training. We could bring the equipment, we even have a life-size, inflatable pilot whale that we use for simulating saving techniques. All we need is for someone to organise a venue and a place to stay overnight for trainers.” He said trained IWDG volunteers “are thin on the ground in Donegal.”

Berrow also said the Donegal wildlife service’s contention that there were no vets with sufficient expertise about whales and that no adequate drugs in the county to euthanize the 12 whales was also misleading. “I’d be shocked if there is not enough Pentabarbitone in Donegal. Anyway, they could have contacted us or the Dublin Zoo which uses the drugs on large animals such as giraffes or even Tony Patterson, the relevant officer across the border in Northern Ireland who I’m sure would have gladly helped.”

In the Republic of Ireland, Pentabarbitone is administered by “a 14 gage needle, the longest one possible, preferably over six inches.” Around 60 to 80 milligrammes are used per kilo of animal. Pilot whales are on average between 1,000 and 1,800 kilo.

Regarding the alternative option for euthanasia, Berrow said, “The wildlife service at Glenveigh Park – due mainly to the deer population – have several persons well-trained in gun and rifle use. Using a .303 calibre rifle with solid bullets fired through the blowhole into the heart chamber, the unfortunate whales could have been put out of their misery within two minutes, instead of them having to suffer for five whole days with blisters on their skin the size of footballs.”

An international petition launched last week calling for more humane treatment of stranded whales in Ireland has already attracted more than 200 signatures (see petition here)

Local people gather with Native American Indian Gary (White Deer) for special prayers and a blessing of family of whales that died at Ballyness beach, Falcarragh, Donegal (photo courtesy of Sarah Sayers).

Berrow said a small government grant was awarded to the IWDG for 2011-13 to run a stranded whale scheme but only to monitor the mammals and handle data on them. There has been no funding for training courses. This year the contract went out to tender, then withdrawn in May. “With the increase in sightings of whales and dolphins off Ireland’s coast, it is crucial to have protocols and funding in place now,” he said.

He added that there is no national policy on taking tissue samples or conducting post-mortems on the mammals to find out what caused them to strand. “We have an agreement with the National History Museum and take samples wherever possible and place them there in a freezer,” he said. “But there should be a more concerted, organized effort by the relevant government authority.”

Meanwhile, Donegal Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty said, “I have huge concerns regarding the policy enacted by the National Parks and Wildlife Service when the pilot whales were beached in Falcarragh recently.” He added, “It is my belief that locals with knowledge in this area should have been assisted in their further attempts to rescue the whales and I commend them for their heroic efforts. I support the petition calling for this review of this policy and I have submitted a number of Questions to the Minister calling for this review, which are due to be taken tomorrow.”

Doherty has submitted several formal written questions to the Dail, including one viz-a-viz, “if there is an official policy in place within his Department which outlines the procedure for the rescue efforts of beached whales; if this policy is circulated to the various stakeholders such as Local Government and the NPWS and if the Minister will make a statement on the matter?”

Formal protocols and increased government funding are necessary to save the Irish whale population (Photo courtesy of Selkie Sailing)

A second question asks, “if it is best practice to allow beached whales to perish without any intervention in order to ease the suffering of the animal; if it is standard practice to prohibit volunteers from making rescue efforts ; if the Minister intends to review this policy in the near future in light of the distress of the whales beached in Falcarragh, Donegal recently and if the Minister will make a statement on the matter?”

A third question deals with lack of equipment, in which he asks for “the reasons why the necessary equipment was not available to the NPWS in Donegal to allow them to humanely put the beached whales in Donegal to death by chemical injection and if the Minister will make a statement on the matter?”

The worldwide organisation, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation group, active in over 25 countries globally, has also waded into the controversy, officials from its headquarters in the UK stating, “It’s a real shame that there is not a strandings network in Ireland as there is in for example the UK. Here there is an incredibly well set-up and coordinated network of volunteers (BDMLR) that are trained in what to do in the event of a stranding and are first responders to any live (and sometimes dead) stranding.”

It continued, “By having these volunteers in place around the country any whales and dolphins that strand have the best possible chance of being refloated and surviving the ordeal. In a nutshell, what needs to happen is a) Interested Irish citizens need to come together and try to recreate what has been achieved in the UK via BDMLR, and b) the Irish Government need to commit to providing funds to set-up a programme similar to the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) here in the UK.” (see HERE example of how strong organisation and proper protocols can save some members of the whale population).

July 14, 2014 by HillenSean

Stranded pilot whales buried alive?

Below is a more extensive story to the one I wrote for the front page of yesterday’s (Monday) ‘Donegal News’ on the seeming lack of co-ordination, expertise and simple know-how that led to the tragic deaths of a pod of 12 young and adult pilot whales from slow suffocation at Ballyness beach near Falcarragh last week.

Following public outcry over how 12 pilot whales were left by conservation officials to suffocate over the last week at a west Donegal beach, talks have been initiated between the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NWPS) over alleged mistreatment.

In a message from the founder and executive officer of IWDG, Professor Simon Berrow voicing concerns over the handling of some of the stranded whales at Ballyness beach near Falcarragh and the need for an immediate meeting with the NWPS.

Wildlife service and Donegal county officials on whale death watch

One wildlife service official, who declined to be named out of fear his job would be in jeopardy, acknowledged “it was a disgusting situation, terrible decisions were made,” adding “management heads at the service should roll over this debacle.” The official added, however, that calls were made to the IWDG seeking guidance and were not returned. “Where were the experts when we desperately needed them?” the official added. “We could have done with that, a simple phone call back to talk us through what we should do. Even a picture, a video on a smart phone would have helped.”

It is believed internal reports – mainly critical of the overall operation at Ballyness beach – are to be submitted within the next few days to higher levels of national management within the wildlife service. “We have so many lessons to learn for this mess,” one official said.

Referring to two stranded pilot whales – highly-intelligent members of the dolphin family – that were helped back into the water by Gareth Doherty, local environmentalist and wildlife enthusiast with Selkie Sailing in Derrybeg, Berrow wrote: “Gareth, well done with all your efforts on the beach. These whales should have been euthanized after they re-stranded. It is not that difficult. Pentabarbitone or shooting would have been effective. The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group are seeking a meeting with NPWS to try and establish who is legally responsible for managing these live stranding events. IWDG think it is NPWS. It is simply not good enough to say there was nothing that could be done.”

Tortured whale draws its last breath.

In contrast, Pat Vaughan, a local district conservation officer for the National Parks and Wildlife Service in charge of the stranded whale operation at Ballyness, said during the week that ‘mercy killing’ could not be used as “it is hard to find the drug and no vet has been trained locally to administer it as it requires special skill.” Vaughan acknowledged that no vet was consulted before the decision was made to allow “nature to take its course” and the whales to suffocate. “No vets are trained for this kind of thing here in Donegal,” he said. “No local vets want to be involved in situations like this.”

The Donegal county vet nor any of his associates offered to help deal with the tragic situation. This being the case, with no expert advice on hand, wildlife and environmental officials say it is quite likely some whales were buried alive. “Without the proper training and because the mammals are so large, knowing when they have died is not easy,” one official said. “What might have happened doesn’t bear thinking about. Their agony must have been excruciating.”

The message on the Selkie Facebook left by Berrow – a national expert on marine life who is a full-time lecturer at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and has worked with the British Antarctic Survey and the International Whaling Commission – reflects confusion surrounding the handling of the situation at Ballyness beach. His communication highlights the lack of clear policy on such incidents in Ireland, not only with regard to which organization should be in charge but how to conduct a proper assessment about how the whales should be treated. After founding the IWDG in 1990, Berrow also helped establish the Irish Basking Shark Study Group in 2009.

Environmentalist and wildlife lover, Gareth Doherty, tries to assist struggling whales at Ballyness beach.

A clear SOP (standard operating procedure) for dealing with whale strandings has become ever more important in Donegal as the ‘Ballyness tragedy’ is the 13^th such incident in the county this year, not to mention the pod of 32 whales that died in Rutland Island two years ago that were cut up and transported to Cavan for incineration. A minke whale’s body was discovered off Bloody Foreland and left there on the rocks below a cliff to rot for two months and sperm whale was washed up on Magheraroarty beach and died.

“Statutory bodies – health, county officials, the Gardai, the coastguard, the whale and dolphin, wildlife services – we all need to sit down and work out what should be done and by whom in such situations,” said Vaughan, who added, “Our (the wildlife service) remit is just to measure the whales, identify the species and take blood and tissue samples.”

In a further development, the international Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) group, active in over 25 countries globally, said after being contacted that it had provided the IWDG with a formal protocol procedure for cetacean (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) strandings. That policy clearly states, “IWDG will normally only consider reflotation after looking at individual circumstances (eg coastal or offshore species, body condition, location etc) and recommends consultation with an experienced veterinarian.”

Outdated protocol? Wildlife service official watches on while whales die slowly from suffocation.

In addition, those in charge at Ballyness could have availed of one the IWDG’s ‘live stranding kits.’ These kits are located in three strategic places around the country and “are designed to cater for animals up to 4m long and contain air mattresses, tarpaulins, veterinary equipment, torches, buckets etc. The pontoons are used for reflotation of larger animals, to about 6m in length, and if necessary, the smaller kits may be used to stabilize these animals while waiting for the pontoons to arrive.” Reports indicate that no such equipment was brought to Ballyness beach nor concerted efforts made to transport the whales back to deeper water. None of these three locations is in Donegal, even though so many whale strandings take place here every year.

Also, while in other parts of Ireland, the coastguard service is used to bring stranded whales out to sea to try to save them, in Donegal last week, the service was not asked to do this. “We follow best practise but bringing them out to sea is a futile exercise,” said Vaughan. “Rules are rules. We have to follow protocol.”

While in other parts of the world people assist in saving stranded whales, (see video of a humpback whale successfully rescued after being beached for 38 hours in Australia), at Ballyness beach wildlife authorities in charge deliberately discouraged people from helping, with one woman who was bathing a dying whale’s eye in saltwater to comfort the mammal was told to leave the scene or she’d be forced to do so.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people who arrived at the scene of the carnage at Ballyness, many of whom came there to help, were left disgusted at what they witnessed, as reflected in letters to the editor printed in local newspapers and on-air radio and television comments. Their concern for better co-ordination and more humane treatment of the mammals, including euthanasia where necessary, is being harnessed in a special petition that has been launched HERE. It is a petition well worth signing.

In a future blog: Toxic waste dumped at sea off Donegal’s coast – hazard to human as well as marine animal health? The inside story.

July 11, 2014 by HillenSean

Wailing for the death of majestic whales

Nothing is worse in life than waiting for death.

Especially if that death is an excruciatingly slow and painful one.

That’s why it was so heart-wrenching to watch a pod of 13 beautiful adult long-finned male and female pilot whales and their children suffocate slowly – over five horrific days – at Ballyness beach near Falcarragh this week.

One of the stranded pilot whales, a highly-intelligent member of the dolphin family, lies struggling for breath on Ballyness Beach, Falcarragh, west Donegal.

Heart-wrenching because there must be – and is – another, more humane, way to deal, with such a tragic situation. And the Irish authorities, in their usual bumbling, bureaucratic manner, haven’t cottoned on to it.

In other countries, including those in Europe as well as Australia and New Zealand, people are encouraged to come with buckets of water and towels when whales become stranded ashore, to help them survive, to prevent their sensitive skin from being burned up, until efforts can be made to return them to the waters from which they came. At Ballyness, there were reports of the authorities actually turning people back from doing so, including a young woman who was bringing glasses of saltwater to pour over the eye of a dying whale.

Local people look on helpless as a pod of pilot whales struggle to re-enter deep waters. Photo by Joe Boland

How ironic. After all, it is usually us, humans, that cause such tragic situations in the first place. Pilot whales, 16 to 20 feet in length and highly-intelligent members of the dolphin family, usually live offshore, following and feeding at a depth of between 2,000 and 10,000 feet along the corridor of the Continental Shelf, which lies around 50 miles off Tory Island, according to local environmentalist, Gareth Doherty. If you see them near shore something is badly wrong. Through the dumping of toxic waste in the ocean and from tolerating – often unauthorized – military submarine activity, both of which interfere with marine animals’ natural sonar systems, we force vulnerable whales, as well as dolphin and other species, into shallow water where they become trapped and struggle for breath. Think of yourself drowning – very, very slowly. Think of a plastic bag being pulled tight over your face and you trying to breathe, realizing the next breath might be your last. That gives you some idea of the torture our close cousin, the whales – mammals just like us – went through this week at Ballyness beach, west Donegal.

That’s tragedy in itself. Worse is that what happened this week could have been prevented. Or at least dealt with in a less cruel fashion.

Coastguard Joe Curran (in orange) and Gareth Doherty talk to Austrian Antonia Leitner about whale activity in the area.

Unlike many countries, Ireland doesn’t even have a formal, official SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) in place so that the various organisations – Gardai, health authorities, Dongal County Council, National Parks and Wildlife, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group – know exactly what to do in a difficult situation like the one this week at Ballyness. Consequently, delays occur, and delays are crucial in such situations, literally the difference between life and death. Some authorities were telling people not to go near the whales, others were letting them do so. When asked about this, the inevitable response from wildlife and parks officials – most of which have a passion for animal safety – was that marine animals are protected in the wild in Ireland. However, stranded whales by the nature of the situation are obviously not ‘in the wild.’ Their response to this: ‘rules are rules, we have to follow protocol.’

In some countries, a task force has been set up and vets specially trained to deal with such large mammals in such distress, even to administer opiates as a mean of ‘mercy killing’ to put the unfortunate animals out of their misery. Not in Ireland, even though such a task force has been ‘under discussion’ for quite some time.

Efforts underway by local environmentalists to try to save some of the struggling pilot whales. Photo by Joe Boland

Remember, the stranding and deaths of the 13 whales at Ballyness is not the only example. There have been 13 such whale strandings over the last year in Donegal. Not to mention the 32 whales on Rutland Island two years ago, all left to die, then cut up and transported to Cavan where they were burned in an incinerator. Have you any idea how much that whole operation cost? Tens of thousands of euro in hard-earned public money wasted by Donegal county council – money for the hire of JCB diggers and their drivers simply to be on stand-by – just waiting for the whales to die; costly overtime for Gardai and personnel of the National Parks and Wildlife – just waiting for the whales to die; transport trucks; butchers for the cut-up of the bodies; fees for incineration. That money could have been better used for proper equipment to try to push the whales back into the water – some would survive, others might not, but we’ve got to try. That money could have been used to purchase the opiates; for training of vets; for sending blubber samples to laboratories – as they do in many other countries – to find out what is causing the strandings in the first place.

It’s no wonder we Irish are the laughing stock of Europe, and beyond. It’s long past time Irish authorities faced up to their responsibilities in the proper manner. Whether it’s caring for our precious wildlife; dealing with crooked bankers; or organizing a bloody country-and-western music concert, we just seem to cock things up.

Gareth Doherty, environmentalist and wildlife enthusiast with Selkie Sailing, Derrybeg, and colleagues, observe the efforts of pilot whales as they try to make their way back out to sea. Photo by Joe Boland

And we will continue to cock things up – until Irish people wake up, realize they’re being made a fool of and use their voices and their feet to put an end to it.

Instead of letting children bounce up and down on the backs of dying whales, as some parents did at Ballyness this week, or carving their names on their backs, what about people setting up a petition table at Falcarragh crossroads (and/or one online, I can help someone set this up)? Is there a better time to start than today, Friday, market day, and for the next few weeks, calling for changes in regulations to prevent toxic dumping, restrict military submarine activity and allow for more humane care of marine animals dying around our coast?

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Search-and-rescue missions will continue this weekend as further sightings of beached whales and other species reach local coastguard stations. Bunbeg Coastguard Joe Curran and Gareth Doherty, with Selkie Sailing in Derrybeg, spent hours sweeping in and around the inlets of Gola, Owey, Inis Oirthir and Inis Meain islands seeking evidence of whales in difficulty to save them.

“They are wonderful species and deserve whatever help we can provide, like us, they’re of Nature,” said Curran, as he sped from fishing boats to sailing crafts enquiring whether anyone had seen unusual activity (see photo above).

Added Doherty, who managed with others, to push two of the dying whales back into the water for safety, “This tragedy highlights the need for all of us to be extra careful in how we treat the environment around us, whether that be land or sea. Some of the workings of Mother Nature are best left alone, but we can make our environment safer. Keeping our water, our beaches, clean of toxin poisons is key.”

Beached whales associated with sonar show evidence of physical trauma, including bleeding in their brains, ears and internal tissues, often symptoms that in humans seem a severe case of decompression sickness, or ‘the bends.’ Sonar may affect whales’ dive patterns, said Andrew Speer, conservation officer and volunteer with the Irish Whale and Dolphin group. Causes of death can also include weather conditions; diseases (viruses, brain lesions, ear or sinus parasites); underwater seismic activity (seaquakes); magnetic field anomalies; or unfamiliar underwater topography, according to Pat Vaughan, district conservation officer with the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Sean Hillen

International journalist, publisher and author of novel 'Pretty Ugly'

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