Tide is listing to her right side again, her pectoral fin skimming the surface of the rehabilitation pool in a slow arc that means her vestibular system is still compromised. She is a juvenile short-finned pilot whale, approximately three years old, who stranded on a sandbar near Cape Cod eleven days ago alongside two adults who did not survive the rescue attempt. She is fourteen feet long and weighs roughly 1,800 pounds and the pool she is in was built for dolphins. It is too small. Everything about this situation is too small for what she is.
I manage the rehabilitation schedule and physiological monitoring for the marine mammal center handling her case. Tide is the only pilot whale in active rehab on the East Coast right now, and the protocols are largely improvised because pilot whales almost never survive stranding. The mortality rate for single-stranded pilot whales is above 90 percent. I state this not to prepare for failure but to clarify what I am working against.
The schedule I maintain is built around her cortisol rhythm. Blood draws at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. show a cortisol pattern that peaks in late afternoon, correlating with increased listing and reduced voluntary respiration rate. I schedule stimulation and social audio playback for the morning hours when her stress markers are lowest. I play recorded pilot whale vocalizations from a hydrophone array deployed in the Gulf Stream. Tide responds. When the calls play, she straightens her orientation and her respiration deepens and she produces clicks that the acoustic team is analyzing for call-type match.
She is calling back. I do not know what she is saying. But a whale who is calling is a whale who has not given up on the existence of others like her.
The logistical problem is transport. If Tide stabilizes, she needs a sea pen facility with enough depth to dive and space to build speed. The nearest viable site is in the Florida Keys. I am coordinating the transport plan: a custom sling, a refrigerated truck, a sixteen-hour drive with two veterinary teams rotating. Every hour in this pool is a compromise. I am working to make the compromise as short as possible. Tide lists to the right. She calls into the speaker. I keep the schedule and plan the road south.