NATURE — Whale Family Spotted In Shetland After Weekend On The ClydeASK any wildlife enthusiast to name their top 10 “must-see” animals and I bet most would include the orca, or killer whale, writes David Carnduff.
These magnificent ocean predators feature strongly in the popularity rankings along with big cats, polar bears and wolves, to name just a few of nature’s “A-listers”.
However, no one had the slightest inkling that orcas would put in an appearance in the inner Clyde. The arrival in mid-April of a pod of six, a male, four females and a calf, caused huge excitement — with hundreds flocking to coastal vantage points in the hope of glimpsing the Clyde’s exotic visitors. The fact that it was a sunny, warm Saturday also helped fuel people’s enthusiasm for a spot of whale-watching.
Like most people, I was alerted to the orcas’ presence by a post on Facebook. So gardening tasks that morning were abandoned and I drove to Gourock in the hope of seeing them. I was not disappointed. They had first been spotted off Wemyss Bay and were making steady progress up river. I, and many others, got a first glimpse as the orcas passed Ashton.
Having seen them often on TV nature programmes, I knew they would be impressive, but viewing them in the familiar waters of the Clyde had a totally surreal quality. In comparison to the resident harbour porpoises, these were big, powerful animals with an undeniable wow factor.
| Coverage at the time of the whale’s visit
Whales have been at the heart of successful environmental campaigns thanks to activists whose daring exploits when confronting whaling ships have made headline news. Over the decades, there has been a growing fondness and appreciation of these ocean giants which symbolise the urgent need to protect marine environments worldwide.
Seeing whales up close seems to trigger an emotional response in many people who become passionate about keeping these intelligent, sentient animals safe from any harm in their ocean wanderings.
Contrast that with the strange events of 1883 when a humpback whale swam into the Firth of Tay and was duly harpooned. The Tay Whale, known locally as The Monster, managed to escape but was found floating dead off Stonehaven a week later. It was towed into Dundee by a showman, John Woods, and exhibited on a train tour of Scotland and England. Then it got even more bizarre.
The Regius Professor of Anatomy at Aberdeen University, John Struthers, dissected the whale, much of the time in public with a military band playing in the background, organised by Woods. The decomposing whale made Woods a great deal of money, and Struthers famous. The doggerel poet William McGonagall wrote an infamously bad — and unintentionally hilarious — poem about the events. The whale’s skeleton is now in the McManus Gallery in Dundee.
Coming back to the present day, there is a fascinating postscript to the Clyde orcas story. The same group were filmed on 8 May in Yell Sound, Shetland. A post on the Shetland Orcas Facebook page reported: “Brilliant video of Orcas…in Yell Sound late yesterday evening. The big bull in the pod is ‘Busta’.
“This pod is now nationally famous having been seen in the Clyde a couple of weeks ago! This is the third confirmed sighting of this particular pod in our waters since Friday.”
This demonstrates that orcas are masters of the marine environment, ranging far and wide in family groups. Let’s hope they enjoyed their sojourn in the Clyde and will return soon.
