Marine scientists in Cape Town, observed by emotional crowds, were euthanizing dozens of Pilot whales Saturday on a beach after rescue workers lost the battle to return the beached mammals to sea, according to dpa. Around 55 pilot whales, large members of the dolphin family, washed up on Kommetjie beach in Cape Town shortly after dawn. It was not clear what caused the mass landing. Three whales had died by late afternoon as National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) volunteers and marine scientists battled to collect them across a wide section of beach and get them back to sea, using municipal front-end loaders. But as soon as they were returned to the surf, the whales, which measure between 4 and 6 metres in length, kept pointing their noses for shore, forcing marine scientists to take the painful decision to euthanize them with a gunshot to the head. "Many of them came back onto the beach again and washed up on the rocks," a spokesman for the NSRI, Craig Lambinon, told the German press Agency dpa. Lambinon said he thought all the remaining 52 whales would have to be euthanized. "Quite a few" had already been put down, he said. The large crowds that had gathered at the beach throughout the day to observe the plight of the whales and offer their help watched stricken as the animals lost their lives. "I feel quite sad, but it is the right thing to do," Nan Rice, head of the Dolphin Action and Protection group in the area was quoted by SAPA news agency as saying. Unfortunately they (the volunteers) couldn't do it (save them)." Rice said she believed a "navigational error" had caused them to wash ashore.
