Whale Spotted in the River Thames!!

[DQuaN]

Article

A whale has made its way up the River Thames to central London, where it is being watched by riverside crowds.

The northern bottle-nosed whale, which is 16-18ft long and is usually found in deep sea waters, has passed Parliament and is moving upstream.

"I saw it blow, it was a spout of water which sparkled in the air," said eyewitness Tom Howard-Vyne.

A boat has been sent to protect the whale and rescuers have been trying to keep it away from the Thames's banks.

It has come within yards of the banks and has crashed into an empty boat, while trapped in a narrow estuary between the banks and moored vessels.

Vets are remaining on standby, experts have said it does not appear to be ill, but are concerns it will get weaker and may become beached.

 

[Lee]

Theres been one reported in Southend too.

 

[Der Alta]

I've deleted a handful of garbage posts. This is not the convo forum.

Keep the idiocy out of this thread, or I start swinging a ban hammer.

 

[donbenni]

I heard this on Radio 1, funny little story. Hope it travels a bit futher along, will go and look at it. I guess it'll pass you first actually Dunc. Well it's not everyday you get to see a whale is it

 

[DQuaN]

I thought this was more entertaining than just being current events. It's not a high profile news story.

 

[Jondot]

Sky news were making a big deal about it earlier.

 

[DQuaN]

If Anchor man creates a thread about it. You can delete this one.

 

[ferrari_chris]

I heard on the news there were really big crowds gather to catch a glimpse of Moby Dick. Really big crowds.

Can anyone confirm this?

Also: I hope the poor whale doesn't die - the Japanese are killing enough down south here for everyone...

 

[Blake]

Wow.

I hope it survives, I’ve heard what you British do to dolphins!

 

[ferrari_chris]

Wow.

I hope it survives, I’ve heard what you British do to dolphins!

ROFLMAO!

 

[Poverty]

We pet them.

I feel for the whale. They say that there might be two! I hope it gets out safely theyre saying that its getting weak now.

 

[ExigeEvan]

Yeah a pretty big this was made of it yesterday on sky news.

Can't they 'fish' it out and carry it back to wherever? Must be better than it starving in the Thames.

 

[Jondot]

Yeah a pretty big this was made of it yesterday on sky news.

Can't they 'fish' it out and carry it back to wherever? Must be better than it starving in the Thames.

That's what i was thinking. All i could see going on was a lot of splashing ...

 

[Danny]

"Don't expect a happy ending"



Poor thing.

 

[Andrew R]

That's pretty amazing. I hope it turns out better than people are expecting, that'll be one sad news story if it dies.

 

[ExigeEvan]

I'm sure it's dead already. They just didn't want to kill it in on the shore infront of all those kids.

[EDIT] Just checked BBC, the whale is already dead.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4635874.stm

 

[Blake]

That sucks.

 

[Andrew R]

Are you sure it's not just sleeping?

Poor stupid thing.

 

[ExigeEvan]

Anything that's dumb enough to swim up the Thames is bound to have something wrong with it.

It'll probably end up in the national history museum soon enough.

 

[Der Alta]

And we go off topic, and it gets closed.

Even after the first warning.

I've edited all the crap posts out and I'm re-opening it.

These posts that have shown up look like they should be in the convo forum. I'd hate to think the useless banter there is spilling over to the rest of the board.

 

[DQuaN]

The whale has now unfortunatley died and an autopsy will be performed soon.

There is also lots of talk on how the whale got lost in the first place, with all theories pointing at the MoD.

It is thought that sonar and weapons testing could have confused the animal and intefered with it's natural sonar.

 

[donbenni]

You're joking right, the MoD? That's great.

Crying shame it didn't survive though. Really took over the news for a couple of days, apparently the first time in 80 years or so that a whale from that species has entered the Thames (or something equally interesting to the same effect).

 

[cardude2004]

This is interesting. I wonder what caused the death? Did the skin dry or something?

 

[ferrari_chris]

This is interesting. I wonder what caused the death? Did the skin dry or something?

Might have been stress.

From what I saw on the TV it was thrashing around in the shallows and not looking very happy at all.

It may have just got exhausted too...

 

[Blake]

This is interesting. I wonder what caused the death? Did the skin dry or something?

I heard it had some infected wounds, and it definatly looked distressed. Poor thing.

 

[Danny]

It's organs were crushed under it's own weight.

 

[cardude2004]

It's organs were crushed under it's own weight.

Was that the final cause of death? I don't know, I live in the US. I am just picking up information from this thread and articles linked to it.

Here you flip on TV and you hear about the people murdered in Milwaukee last night, or Iraq.

 

[Danny]

Yes, that was the cause of death.

 

[ferrari_chris]

It's organs were crushed under it's own weight.

Was that after it was lifted out of the water, or did it beach or something because that won't happen while it's still in the water.

 

[Omnis]

Damn, yo. Seriously. If you can manage to crush yourself while in water, you're one fat ass whale.