retina said:

Not quite true; it was dying from the second they got it - the vet was suggesting putting it down, but they tried anyway. It went into convulsions halfway through the journey and finally died as they approached a deeper river; nowhere near the sea.

Spookymuffin said:

Well, nobody could know for certain that it was going to turn out like that. It was worth a try.

Spookymuffin said:

Actually, that's not quite true either. The injuries it had appeared to be superficial. They had no way of knowing the state of its internal organs until they had performed blood tests, which appeared to indicate the whale was ok. They didn't get the results until well into the journey however.

The whale was showing no signs of stress until four hours before it was due to be set free, when it experienced erratic breathing. This may not have been due to any injuries; the more likely cause was that by being out of the water it was putting stress on its internal organs due to its own weight. An hour before it died, the experts were still considering releasing it although it had started to go into muscle spasm. This was happening again because it had been out of the water for so long and having to support the weight of its own body.

The opinion of all the experts I was listening to, including a very experienced marine mammal vet was that the operation had gone smoothly but the whale had little chance of survival. They all felt that the chance was worth taking, however.

The whale was only 1-2 hours away from being released. It was felt that they had almost completed a successful mission and that it could be released slowly so that it had a chance to overcome the muscle spasms. But time was at the essence from the minute it was taken on board the barge and it unfortunately ran out of time.

They are completing an autopsy now to ascertain whether the whale was sick. If that is the case then the outcome may have been the best one possible, despite the fact that it died. However, nobody can say until that has happened that the whale was too sick to try to save because we simply don't know.

Also, I am of the opinion that we should always try where we can to help our fellow creatures on this planet. It defines our humanity and if we learn to ignore suffering from any quarter then we are lost.