Whales Euthanized During Mass Stranding on Maui

Tourists staying at the Kihei resort community at Sugar Beach woke up to find ten stranded whales at their beachfront.

The sighting was so strange that one of the residents, Shellie McClinton, claimed she thought it was a human body at first.

Five of the whales ended up dying; four were euthanized. The other one was a whale calf thought to belong to the same social group. It was found dead on a beach a mile to the north.

Veterinarians with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined that four of the whales were in severe condition and there was nothing that could be done to save them.

According to the NOAA’s wildlife management and conservation branch, Jeffrey Walters, the whales were made comfortable with a sedative and then euthanized to bring an end to their suffering.

The remaining whales were refloated to the ocean, but they got stranded again. The NOAA claimed the prognosis for two of the six whales was not very optimistic, but they eventually made it.

Officials from the environmental institute planned to monitor the area on Friday in the event the whales get stranded. According to David Schofield, the regional marine mammal response coordinator for NOAA, one of the six whales freed is probably debilitated.

Thankfully, the last time they saw the whales, they were swimming healthily in deep waters. It is everyone’s hope the whales got their bearings this time as they head out to see.

Walter claimed the NOAA and scientists from the University of Hawaii are going to continue examining the whales to determine the reason for the stranding.

In a bizarre twist, Kealoha Pisciotta, a native Hawaiian cultural practitioner, objected to the euthanizing of the whales claiming they were a manifestation of a sea deity known as Kanaloa.

She wanted to hold the whales in the water up to the time they could recover and swim away. On the other hand, they could die on the beach, but it would allegedly be an honorable exit.

Walters claimed the NOAA did work closely with the Hawaiian cultural practitioners saying they prayed before and after the whales were euthanized.

However, this is exactly what the cultural practitioners did not want as they believed the deity should go into the realm of their gods in peace and without predetermination from a needle.

The melon-headed whales are usually found in the deep tropical waters, and they grow to a size of 9 feet.

The last time this many mammals ended up stranded on the beach was two years ago when five pilot whales died in Kauai’s Nawiliwili Harbor.