#BALTIMORE WHALE - Hopes are fading for an injured whale trapped in Baltimore Harbour, according to the Irish Independent.
It's being reported that the fin whale, which was injured on sharp rocks and beached off the pier in the West Cork harbour yesterday, is being left to die as it is too ill to be helped back to deeper water and too large to be euthanised.
It had been hoped that the whale would return to the sea under its own power by high tide but that sadly did not happen.
"Nothing can be done," Dr Simon Berrow of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) told the Independent. "It can't be refloated or drigged. All you can do is let nature take its course."
The 40-foot whale became something of an instant attraction in Baltimore as crowds gathered in the harbour, as TheJournal.ie reports.
However, marine wildlife experts believe that the young whale must have been sick or malnourished to have made it so far from the open sea into the sheltered harbour.
The IWDG's Padraig Whooley also reiterated that most whale strandings end in death, and Brendan Cottrell of the Baltimore RNLI said the best thing was to do their best not to stress the animal further.
Elsewhere, a female fin whale stranded on a beach in Cornwall has died despite efforts to save her, according to the Daily Mail.
The 65-foot whale was put down by vets from British Divers Marine Life Rescue after she was found beached at Carylon Bay on the south coast on Monday morning. The whale was was described as "incredibly undernourised".
