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ttempts to save eleven whales stranded in Bali’s waters during the last two years did not meet
international standards and further endangered the animals, conference participants heard last weekend.

Several scholars and environmentalists took part in a one-day workshop last weekend to discuss how to save whales stranded in Bali’s waters.

Benyamin Khan of APEX Environmental said most stranded whales were rescued by local people using traditional methods that were inefficient and threatened the lives of the animals.

Thirty-one of the world’s 120 whale species are found in Indonesia, he said.

Migration routes for the huge mammals pass through Bali, he said. The lives of whales in Indonesian waters are threatened by fishnets, sharks, oil and gas exploration, pollution and plastic and inorganic waste, he added.

Bali needs to establish a special whale rescue team, said Made Jaya Ratha from Udayana University’s Animal Husbandry School Turtle Guard Team. A university survey said nine whale species inhabited the waters of Bali and Lombok, he said.

Forty whales were stranded in Bali’s waters between 2000 and 2010.

Half of the stranded whales survived and were evacuated to the ocean. The rest died during rescue efforts.

Ratha said that hunger, sickness and infection contributed to the unwanted migration of whales from their habitats.

Whales typically migrate to find food or avoid disturbances such as inclement weather, waste and noise pollution, which can affect their natural sonar.

Conference chairperson Pariama Hutasoit described her experience while rescuing a baby humpback whale on Tanah Lot Beach in Tabanan in 2007.

“The unfortunate baby whale was ensnared by fishing nets,” she said.

The whale suffered severe dehydration after residents and officials carried it to shore to untangle it from the nets.

“The whale was found dead two days after the rescue effort,” she said.