A whale that spent almost three weeks lost in a shallow Australian estuary has finally made it back to the open ocean – thanks to a pod of dolphins.
Gail, a juvenile southern right whale, swam into the Peel-Harvey Estuary south of Perth on June 28 and couldn’t find her way out again. She measured 10.6 meters long and 1.8 meters deep, and is an endangered animal built for the open sea, but stuck in water crisscrossed with sandbars.
One local with a drone, Callum Craig, captured her plight, including when a pod of local dolphins showed up to help.
“When the whale got across the sandbar, it appears a pod of coastal dolphins has turned up and possibly may have led it back out to safety,” Geographe Marine Research director Rodney Peterson told the ABC in Australia.
Peterson said a high tide and a falling barometer gave Gail the lift she needed to clear the sandy section and reach the cut, and even then she didn’t manage it first go.
“After a couple of failed attempts it finally swam free,” he said.
Time had not been on her side. Peterson said the longer the whale stayed in the estuary, the worse her odds got. Nobody knows what pulled her in there in the first place, and he suspects nobody ever will.
“We’ll probably never know, but probably the best thing is that the whales are curious,” Peterson said. “Being a huge tide, it hasn’t recognized that it’s a dangerous area for it to be in and it’s wandered in there and the tide’s gone out.”
A wrong turn on a very big tide, in other words.
Have dolphins done this before?
They have, and marine researchers have watched it happen up close. Emily Ehlers of the Dolphin Discovery Centre saw the same thing last year when a humpback got itself stranded in Koombana Bay at Bunbury, 170 kilometers south of Perth.
“We also observed the same behavior where they kind of have a formation about them,” Ehlers told the ABC. “They try to guide the whale with vocalizations and all sorts. It’s pretty amazing.”
Dolphins are social by nature, she said, and they don’t tend to leave whales alone. Sometimes the whales invite it.
“You see [whales] turn, and they expose their belly, so they kind of invite the dolphins to play,” Ehlers said. “The dolphins ride along the bow of the whale as they’re moving through the water. It’s just a really beautiful interaction to observe.”
She was careful not to oversell it. Whether any given encounter is help, play or something more territorial is open to interpretation, and Ehlers said the relationship between the two species isn’t always friendly.
Locals in the Peel region had watched Gail for the best part of a month, close enough that she’d earned a nickname – McGale. Onlookers who filmed Thursday’s exit – including Callum Craig, who captured stunning drone footage – came away convinced the dolphins had done exactly what it looked like they were doing.
He said in a Facebook post: “Finally all prayers answered, nice high tide higher than expected, estuary dolphins in to assist McGale the Southern Right Whale out of the channel and back into open Ocean.
“Fantastic effort by all involved in keeping and eye on Him through past few weeks. So happy for it to be where it belongs – heading south.”
