A 50-foot sea creature washes up on the shores of Delaware. But the rescue turns out to be too “perilous”

On the morning of Sunday, May 5, a member of the second largest ocean species lay at the water’s edge in Delaware.

It was a 50-foot subadult fin whale, a species rarely seen near shore.

But something was seriously wrong.

“The whale is extremely emaciated, indicating long-term underlying illness,” the Institute of Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation said in a Facebook post the day the whale was found.

Further evidence of the whale’s illness was the simple fact that the whale was near the coast, the nonprofit said.

“Fin whales are an offshore species and would not normally approach the shore unless they become so weak that they can no longer surface to breathe and head for shore.”

Hundreds of people began gathering on the beach, including MERR responders, according to the Delaware News Journal.

Very quickly, it became clear that the whale was not going to make it. The experts’ best bet was to sedate the whale to ease its suffering. But attempts to get close enough to do so proved more difficult than expected, the nonprofit said.

“Unfortunately, the water level and waves made it too difficult for our responders to do so safely for the whale or themselves.”

Suzanne Thurman told the Delaware News Journal that with water levels this high, the huge creature could easily roll over its rescuers and kill them. Even if they really wanted to calm the distressed whale, it wasn’t worth losing human lives knowing that it would likely disappear any minute.

That night, the fin whale took its last breath.

According to the outlet, local efforts have now focused on moving the gigantic animal off the beach and performing a full necropsy on the whale to find out what made it so fatally ill.

Authorities plan to bury the whale on the beach, according to the Delaware News Journal.

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