HEROES
Alfonso Chavez, Lima Peru
June 2008
On Friday June 20 an adult humpback whale was seen very close to the shore in the Punta Sal beach in the north of Peru, and it was obvious that the whale was heavily entangled with fishing net.
While local fisherman were getting ready to kill the whale and cut it for food, Alfonso Chavez, who is an experienced free diver, with the help of his boat captain Jorge, got close to the whale. Alfonso dove into the water and the whale was very calm while Alfonso started to cut the net with his knife. Alfonso was in the water working for about two hours, clearing the head and lateral fins.
He had almost finished cutting the last part of the net on the whale’s tail, when apparently it made a fast move with its tail and hit him on the back of his head. The blow to his head made him unconscious for an instant, but he managed to remove his weight belt and get to the surface. Here, he was rescued and taken to Lima by an ambulance airplane.
Alfonso was very lucky because he had only suffered damage to a couple of cervical discs. The poor whale could not recover, and the next day the whale was finally sacrificed by the local fisherman and cut into pieces.
For his efforts, Alfonso will receive a Save The Whales T-shirt.
Dozens of Stranded Whales Saved
by Fishermen in Africa
May 2008
In Yoff, Senagel, fishermen dragged dozens of stranded pilot whales back out to sea in late May. Unfortunately, at least 20 more died on the beach after coming ashore.
During the night, more than 100 pilot whales beached themselves overnight at Yoff, a traditional Lebou fishing community on the Cap Vert peninsula, mainland Africa's most westerly point.
Fishermen from the area labored through the night to move the animals back to sea from the sloping sandy beach. They attached ropes around the animals black bodies and used their brightly colored open wooden boats known as "pirogues."
All of the fishermen were called out to help save the whales, said Iba Dieye, a local fisherman from Yoff. They got about 20 whales back into the water with ropes, their boats and hands. The whales still on the beach were dead.
Hours after the stranding occurred, local adults and children were still trying to haul some of the remaining live whales back into the waves. Curious crowds gathered during the day to view the carcasses of dead animals. Mobile phones were used to take photographs. Children played on the carcasses, dousing them with water to create a slippery slide.
Local fishermen said they would need government help to remove the dead whales from the beach as they feared the rotting carcasses could cause disease and infection.
Kabore Alassi, a professor from Dakar's Veterinary School, said “All animal carcasses should be destroyed and shouldn't be eaten. But this is Africa, and if the area is not secured, people are tempted to cut off a piece of flesh, some for their animals, like their dogs, and some to eat themselves."
Some whales carcasses were dragged off. Local experts said a similar mass beaching of whales had occurred at the same spot some 30 years ago, and some residents had fallen ill after eating meat from the dead whales.
"It's like a collective suicide. Even when you push them out, they still keep coming back," said Ali Haidar, president of the Oceanium marine conservation organization in Dakar. "It's something to do with their navigational and orientation systems getting disturbed," he added. Haidar said that when around 250 whales beached on the shore in neighboring Mauritania two years ago, experts believed the animals had been disturbed by offshore seismic and sonar exploration by international oil companies. The sonar systems of submarines patrolling or involved in military exercises could have a similar effect on whales. Another possibility was that the pilot whales had been driven ashore by chemical pollution in the water.
Source: Reuters News Service/from a story by Emmanuel Braun
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