A humpback whale discovered earlier this week in the shallow waters of Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie River has wound up dead — as efforts intensify near the town of Stewiacke on Thursday in an attempt to pull the large mammal out of the water.
In a social media statement from Nova Scotia RCMP, police were warning drivers of parked vehicles along the shoulder of Highway 102’s Exit 11 in Stewiacke — as the unusual spectacle was disrupting traffic flow.
As of Thursday morning, members of the Marine Animal Rescue Society (MARS) and the Stewiacke Volunteer Fire Department were on scene. Officials are still determining the best approach for removing the dead whale out of the area, as the shore’s unstable sand conditions are making it difficult for responders to get in close proximity to the whale.
Tonya Wimmer, executive director of the Marine Animal Response Society, said a member of her organization was able to grab a skin sample from the whale this morning.
“It’s the most we can do at the moment, given the situation that this animal is unfortunately in,” she said. “To have this be the outcome is really unfortunate.”
“The issue is it has moved way up the river. It’s now in the Stewiacke River off the Shubenacadie River and it is in quite treacherous mud.”
As for removing the deceased animal from the area, Wimmer said there are challenges.
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“This animal probably weights 19 to 20 tonnes, so you can’t just pick it up. We need heavy equipment and that’s an accessibility thing. So, maybe if it moves to a slightly different location that might be possible. At the moment, it’s a little bit in nature’s hands.”
Rick Burgess, who lives near the river where the humpback was spotted, said he was sitting outside with a friend on Canada Day when a “sound he’s never heard before” began travelling from the water.
“As the tide receded, we saw a tail flapping around and realized it was a whale,” he said, adding that he contacted Hope for Wildlife, an animal rehabilitation organization near Halifax, which sent someone down to investigate the occurrence.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before. It was all new to me.”
Morgan MacDonald, owner of Fundy Tidal Bore Adventures, a rafting business in the area, said he received a call from MARS indicating that a “stranded dolphin” was discovered in the river near his property.
Once he and his crew got closer, MacDonald said what he discovered was “definitely not a dolphin.”
“It was a humpback whale about 13 metres long,” he explained. “It was trapped on a sandbar just about a kilometre from here down the river.”
MacDonald said the whale was trapped for about three hours before the tide came in, adding it remained in water the entire time.
Although it appeared out of its comfort zone, MacDonald said the whale was initially behaving normally — moving its tail, flippers, and mouth whenever his crew would splash water on it. He said MARS then arrived with additional buckets of water to keep the large mammal comfortable until a tide arrived, leading to it drifting away.
“He seemed very excited that the tide came in. He started moving around a lot, flipping his tail, trying to swim,” MacDonald said. “I assume 40 to 50 kilometres from the Bay of Fundy is where he came from.”
The following day, MacDonald said he received a call that the whale was once again spotted — this time, about four kilometres up the river from his location. Upon arrival, his crew noticed that the whale’s condition had rapidly deteriorated.
“He wasn’t alive anymore,” he said.
MacDonald said this was the first time he’s seen a mammal of that size, let alone a humpback whale, in his 25 years of rafting in the Shubenacadie River.
“It’s not a place for a whale. We don’t expect to see them, that’s for sure,” he admitted.
“You see seals, dolphins, harbour porpoises, but not the big guys.”
As for Burgess, who was the first to lay eyes upon the whale, he wonders if more could’ve been done to assist the whale before it died.
“You often wonder if there was quicker response, maybe (it could’ve been saved), maybe not,” he said.
“It had no idea what direction to go. If it’s in here this far, its internal compass wasn’t working right so it obviously didn’t know which way to go.”
— with files from Heidi Petracek and Emma Convey
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