Beached whale in Bali saved by locals

Animal lovers and tourists try to save a beached whale on the famous Nusa Dua Beach in Bali. The 4.5-meter-long whale as beached on Tuesday on the white-sand beach behind the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

The whale was first spotted by Dewa Gde Mertana, an employee of the five-star hotel, at 5 a.m local time.

"I was doing the morning cleaning when a strange sound alerted me to the presence of the giant fish," said Mertana.

Mertana immediately called for others to assist him in saving the whale. Hotel employees rushed to the scene and, using an excavator, transported the whale to a safer place.

By 7 a.m, the whale had been lowered into a makeshift plastic pond filled with sea water. A tent was erected over the pond -- located somewhere in the hotel compound -- to protect the whale from the scorching Bali sun. Hotel employees and tourists constantly poured water over the powerless creature, while others affectionately held and stroked its body. "It was a very critical period. By continuously soaking her with salt water, the rescuers significantly increased her chances of survival," Windia Adnyana of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) later said.

Several of WWF's scientists, who had inspected the whale, later concluded that it was either a Southern or Gervais' Beaked whale. "Anyway, it is probably a female, because we do not see any teeth in her mouth," WWF's Veda Santiaji said.

Several hours later, in the presence of a crowd of hundreds of people, the whale showed signs of recovery. It grew restless and jets of water spurted from its blowhole.

The whale was finally transported out to sea in a boat at around 11.45 a.m. The lively cheers of the crowd accompanied the whale's release. -- I Wayan Juniartha