Baby Whale Shows Signs of Improvement

As veterinarians kept an around-the-clock vigil inside her tank, a baby gray whale brought from Venice Beach to Sea World near death Saturday night showed improvement Sunday, but officials warned it could be weeks or months before it is known whether she will survive.

The calf, which arrived at Sea World dehydrated, underweight and suffering from low blood sugar, began swimming unassisted and demanding to be fed. Feedings were lengthened from every two hours to every three hours.

The whale, believed to be a female, is being fed glucose, antibiotics and a milk-like concoction through a two-inch-diameter tube inserted into her mouth.

Sea World veterinarian Jim McBain said the calf is gaining strength and responding to treatment. In the initial hours after it arrived by truck after beaching itself about a quarter of a mile south of the Venice pier, the whale was limp, unresponsive and only semiconscious.

On Sunday, though, the whale started to exhibit sucking capabilities, which could lead to the removal of the feeding tube and its replacement by a large bottle. The whale was also alert, compared to its sluggish demeanor upon arrival, and soon learned that nuzzling one of the animal care specialists in the water led to a feeding.

“She’s doing pretty well,” said Sea World veterinarian Tom Reidarson. “It takes about 15 minutes to feed her and then she swims for three hours before the next feeding. We’re trying to introduce her to a nipple to simulate mom.”

Reidarson said the baby whale will be weighed Monday to see if the calories are taking hold. More blood tests will be performed as well.

The whale, Reidarson said, is never alone. He and others are the baby’s constant companions, standing in belly-deep water in the tank, observing the whale and watching it swim.

Keith Yip, animal care supervisor at Sea World, is one of those in the tank. “It seems to look to us for comfort,” Yip said of the whale.

Despite Sunday’s improvement, officials warned that the still-unnamed animal faces a long and uncertain road to recovery.

“It will be weeks or even months before we can say she’s got a good prognosis,” said general curator Jim Antrim. “We will continue to use all our resources to work toward our goal of rehabilitating and reintroducing the animal back into the wild.”

Recovery will be a two-step process: Helping the animal survive the trauma of being separated from its mother within days of its birth, and then helping it gain enough strength and savvy to be sent back to the ocean.

At 13 feet 8 inches and 1,670 pounds, the whale fits easily within a 40-foot-by-40-foot tank behind Shamu Stadium. But as it grows it will soon outstrip even Sea World’s facilities.

Since keeping an adult gray whale in captivity is not possible, Sea World officials could face an agonizing dilemma of not being able to keep the whale but also not having confidence that it could survive a return to the ocean.

California gray whales can grow as long as 55 feet and weigh 37 tons, equal to five African elephants. Sea World’s main attractions are the much smaller orcas, or killer whales. Shamu, the park’s headliner, weighs 2 1/2 tons.

The park has an animal-rescue program, but most of its experience has been with seals, dolphins and orcas found beached or floundering. Veterinarians and animal care specialists at the park are employing knowledge acquired during the park’s successful killer-whale breeding program in helping the gray waif.

The park in recent years has witnessed 10 killer-whale births, leading to the development of a liquid that resembles whale milk and is both nutritious and tasty for calves. Officials had estimated that the baby whale was several hundred pounds underweight, and thus an initial task is to provide copious amounts of calories.

Also, antibiotics were administered, both for the whale’s health and the protection of killer whales at the park. Initial blood tests showed no sign of infection.

The last time the park had a gray whale was in 1971, when it cared for a baby--named Gigi, for Gray Girl--for a year before releasing her, apparently successfully. But officials cautioned that the current whale is younger and more vulnerable than Gigi.

In the whale world, the adult gray whale is medium-sized. The blue whale, for example, is twice the size of the gray. The gray has no dorsal fin but has a series of ridges and bumps along its back. Barnacles and amphipods (“whale lice”) routinely attach to the gray’s skin.

Whaling reduced the California gray’s numbers drastically in the late 1880s. But restrictions on whaling have led to a remarkable comeback for the California gray, now thought to number about 25,000.

The whale somehow got separated from its mother just days after birth during the species’ annual November-May migration season from Alaska to Baja California. The animal’s umbilical cord was still attached when it was spotted Friday off Venice in obvious distress.

The whale is being fed about a gallon and a half of the artificial milk at each feeding. As gray whales grow, so do their appetites. An adult is thought to consume upward of 2,400 pounds of food a day, mostly by skimming the bottom of the ocean looking for small crustaceans.