'Stressed' whale's fate in balance

scotsman: The fate of the stranded Thames whale is hanging in the balance after its health suddenly deteriorated.

Rescuers who winched it on to a barge in central London and headed down river to the sea cancelled an appeal for an ocean-going vessel to take it out to deep water.

Experts on board said they were "pessimistic" about the fate of the 15ft-long bottle-nosed whale.

A spokesman for the British Divers Marine Life Rescue Group said it was not fit enough to be transferred to a larger ship to release it off the south coast.

If it is judged fit enough to go back into the water it will now go straight in from the barge.

The spokesman said: "It has obviously been under a lot of stress having been through what it's been through.

"The word being used on the barge is 'pessimistic'. If they do go for a refloat it will be off that barge." Read more

db: One thing is certain; if this rescue operation doesn't go the way we all hope there will be a plethora of dead whale jokes doing the rounds by Monday morning. That's a British characteristic, and not a bad one.