The whale, alas, does not seem to be doing well
Whale freed after being stranded at lock along River Thames in London - video
But having been freed it now seems to have got stuck again: [S]potted near Teddington lock just after 10.20am, heading downstream towards Chiswick and back towards Richmond: “Its condition is deteriorating. It’s not acting the way it did last night. It’s basically lost any energy that it had left in it. It’s also got another stranding injury, which, along with ones from yesterday, all adds up really. “We’re just going to make it a little bit more comfortable and we’re going to have a veterinarian come down and take another look at it, and then they’ll make a decision. It’s not looking like we’ll be able to refloat the animal.”
How does a whale find itself 90 miles from sea? And are such incidents becoming more common? Minke whales are common in the UK, in open water. The juvenile minke could have been separated from its mother and become disorientated in the enclosed estuary.
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Reporting of strandings of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) have been on the increase for the past five years, according to the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, run by the Zoological Society of London. CSIP scientists believe the increase is due to increased awareness and ability to report, rather than a rise in numbers.
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In other signs and portents, Eight people have been arrested after a brawl inside Selfridges in central London. (Selfridges being an upmarket department store at the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street.)
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