Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Whale spotted in central London

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Posted by Jonathan Worthing (Member # 803) on 01-20-2006, 07:40 AM:

From BBC

Whale spotted in central London

The animal was spotted as it passed the Houses of Parliament
Watch the whale
A large whale has been spotted in the River Thames in central London by boaters and sightseers.
The mammal, thought to be a 17ft (5m) northern bottle-nosed whale, was seen swimming past the Houses of Parliament.

"I saw it blow, it was a spout of water which sparkled in the air," said Tom Howard-Vyne, who works at the London Eye, on the other side of the river.

The whale is believed to have travelled upstream passing the Thames Barrier on Thursday night or early on Friday.

'Breathing normally'

"It was on this side of Westminster Bridge and 10 minutes ago it was near the House of Commons, " said Mr Howard-Vyne. "It was an amazing sight."

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) sent a lifeboat to check up on the whale's condition.

The tide has now turned and rescuers hope the whale will find its own way back down river.

Reports of two whales in the Thames were first received on Thursday by the British Divers Marine Life group - but they only found one and thought it had passed the Thames Barrier.

It looks quite healthy and quite relaxed

Liz Sandeman
Marine Connection

But at 0830 GMT on Friday, a man on a train called in to say he might have been hallucinating, but he had just seen a whale in the Thames.

Liz Sandeman, a medic of the Marine Connection, a whale and dolphin protection charity, accompanied the RNLI to examine the animal.

"It looks quite healthy and quite relaxed," she said. "It's breathing normally and its weight seems good."

She said boats in the river could be a danger to the animal.

"There's also the noise which could affect it - the Thames is extremely busy. The last thing we want to do is stress the animal out.

"Some people think it has lost its way or is not feeling well, but it's very hard to say why it is here."

Over the years dolphins and seals have been spotted in the Thames. Sperm whales have been seen in the Thames Estuary and porpoises have feasted on fish near Vauxhall Bridge, in central London.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-20-2006, 08:55 AM:

quote: Article posted above
Whale spotted in central London - The animal was spotted as it passed the Houses of Parliament.

It was probably John Prescott.

Posted by Jonathan Worthing (Member # 803) on 01-20-2006, 10:16 AM:

No it could not be him as the people are trying to save it. [Big Grin]

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 01-21-2006, 09:00 PM:

The Whale died. [Frown]

Link...

(can't post the text from the link...get a film-tech error message)

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-22-2006, 06:29 AM:

Oh well... maybe they'll blow it up! [evil]

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 01-22-2006, 12:16 PM:

I saw a dinosaur in London once. (but it was in a movie)

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 01-22-2006, 12:28 PM:

We've got quite a few dinosaurs in London; real ones in the Natural History Museum, and full-sized model ones on an island in a lake in Crystal Palace Park. I'm not sure what they're made of, they're too old to be fibreglass, they date from Victorian times, probably concrete or something similar.

There are some pictures of them here

Posted by Jonathan Worthing (Member # 803) on 01-23-2006, 03:25 AM:

As soon as they saw the condition of the animal, The save the whale brigade should have killed it & put it out of its misery.

Instead the so called animal lovers tortured it for a several hours
so it would die in the most pain it could.

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 01-23-2006, 09:22 AM:

That's really neat. Too bad you can't walk amongst them, but then I guess they'd be covered with graffiti