On the 2nd of October 2022 in one of Jamaica’s famous beaches in Negril, a lone sperm whale was discovered partially on the beach.
Local islander Alex Carvalho witnessed the miraculous rescue of the whale led by resident, scuba diving instructor and owner of local deep-sea diving and fishing company Stanley Carvalho, with the help of tourists (mostly Americans) visiting the island. The Tides in Jamaica do not change that much so the whale was stuck half in and half out of the shallow waters. Alex Carvalho stated that ‘they tried to dig up the sand around the whale to try and move it’ once it was freed the whale swam straight back to the beach and got stuck again. The rescue team think the whale was confused or lost and separated from its pod because of the weather caused by hurricane Ian that had disrupted the community for the past week, Sperm whales are ‘pretty common to see off the coast of the beaches in Negril, but always travel in pods’. Carvalho said the second time they dug the whale out they used two fishing boats to guide the whale back in the right direction out into the ocean. ‘The whole ordeal took three hours’ she stated.
Environmentalists think that climate change contributed to the nature of Hurricane Ian, making it more likely that Sealife could be disturbed by these harsh conditions in future as global warming continues to progress and other sea animals may not be so lucky.
