TRANG / RESCUE EFFORT FAILS
Beached whale gives up ghost
METHEE MUANGKAEW

Trang - A female sperm whale which was washed up and stranded in a local mangrove forest in Kantang district on Sunday died yesterday despite the efforts of villagers who struggled for hours to pull it back out to sea.

The dead whale, locally known as pawan moo, measuring about four metres long and weighing about a tonne, was towed back to the shores of tambon Koh Libong yesterday morning.

Fisherman Soad Madsoh, who first spotted the beached whale on Sunday afternoon, said he saw the mammal struggle as the tide gradually ebbed.

He asked fellow fishermen to help pull the whale from the mangrove forest back out to sea. But the whale would not budge. It lost strength and later died.

Another fisherman Somkid Puangmulee said pawan moo generally live in the deep sea around Koh Rok. He believed this whale may have got stranded as it tried to escape fishing trawlers' nets, got lost and finally been washed ashore.

Karnchana Adulyanukosol, a marine biologist at Phuket's Marine and Coastal Resources Department, said the whale could have died from a variety of causes. It may have been exposed to the sun for too long when it was stranded, become stressed, gone into shock and then died.

Bangkok Post