Sperm whale is euthanized after beaching
BY DAN PARKER SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

Beached whale COURTESY PHOTO BY TONY AMOS From left, Amanda Perry, a veterinary technician, and Kate Morgan, a volunteer with the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network, tend to a sperm whale that beached itself on Mustang Island on Tuesday, June 10.

Animal rescue workers euthanized an apparently ill or injured young sperm whale after it beached itself on Mustang Island on Tuesday, June 10.

"It's a shame, but you know, that's the most humane thing that could have been done," said Tony Amos, a research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas. Amos also is the Port Aransas coordinator of the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network (TMMSN), an organization that tracks beachings of sea animals including whales and dolphins and attempts rescues and rehabilitations when possible.

Measuring 30 feet in length and weighing an estimated 6 to 7 tons, the whale was too big to move from the beach, Amos said. Even if the whale could have been moved, there is no facility in the area with a tank big enough for a whale that size.

Fully grown, sperm whales could be 50 feet long and weigh 40 tons.

Probably only about four sperm whales have been found on Texas beaches in the past 30 years, Amos said. Some were living, some were dead when found.

The whale beached itself Tuesday near Marker No. 77, in front of Sandpiper Condominiums, nearly eight miles south of Avenue G. Passersby saw the whale rolling in the surf. Someone sum