It’s not just the sight of a whale mass stranding - helpless bodies strewn across the sands - that is harrowing, said Colin McFadyen, Scottish coordinator for British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR), but also the noise these suffering mammals make.

For those who come to the rescue of these beached animals, the experience can be heartbreaking and exhausting.

Few BDLMR call-outs will have been quite as difficult as the mass-stranding that took place at Traigh Mhor on Lewis over the weekend, a beaching that saw over 50 pilot whales dead, and only one saved.

While McFadyen was not present at Traigh Mhor, he has attended other strandings and recalled the impact on him of being on the scene at the huge stranding event of over 70 pilot whales in the Kyle of Durness in 2011, which was found to have been caused by underwater bomb disposals. On that occasion some escaped stranding, others died on the beach, and the rest were refloated by the team.

“I know exactly what the folk on the ground yesterday would have been feeling like,” he said. “Most people tend to think of whales as being relatively quiet, but when you are walking amongst them and you can hear them squealing and clicking to each other when you can hear them getting frantic, it does hit you emotionally.”

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Often suffering whales will also have to be euthanised. This, said Mr McFadyen, is one of the ways it is possible to help the stranded mammals that are too injured to refloat. But it’s a particularly difficult task for those who have to execute it.

“We end up having to shoot animals because of welfare reasons and I’ve seen ghillies who have absolutely no problem with putting deer and other animals out of their misery, crying after doing it with whales. It’s a very different scenario.”

“With the Durness stranding we had quite a lot of good video, from people with go-pros and cameras walking around, as we were taking stock of the animals. I’ve got medics who even now gulp, ten years later, reacting to the memory of what that scene was like.”

 

That intense reaction, he said, speaks of the special connection humans feel to these marine mammals.

“I don’t think," he said, "anyone can describe what that is, but it is very definitely there. No doubt about it. We've had rescues where we’ve had coastguards, firemen, ghillies and all types of people attending and we’ve had Navy divers, and everyone feels it. There is something mystical about it.”

Over the past year, BDMLR has had over 3000 call-outs and 70 percent of them have been seals, many of them seal-pups. But McFadyen also managed the recent stranding of white-beaked dolphins at Fraserburgh at the beginning of June.

Scotland has more marine mammal rescues than anywhere else in the UK, apart from Cornwall.

“We also,” said Mr McFadyen, “tend to have more mass strandings than anywhere else in the UK. It’s partly the nature of the geography. The reason why Cornwall and Scotland get it most is that those are the coastlines closest to deep water. We have a lot of nice shallow bays for things to rest in or get stuck in.

"We have sea lochs for the animals to explore and they then won’t be able to find their way back out of. We have quite a lot of interesting challenges for marine life.”

READ MORE: Ten whales die off Skye as rescuers save 11 from stranded pod

What’s remarkable is that all but BDMLR's four core staff are volunteers. That includes all those who worked through the daylight hours to help the pilot whales at Traigh Mhor – people like Sara Wood-Kwasniewska, whose day-job is is as an ambulance paramedic.

Mr McFadyen paid tribute to their efforts: “Everyone who was on the scene at Traigh Mhor was a volunteer. It is a huge ask. We had people turning out from most of the islands yesterday. We had Fire brigade, coastguard, CalMac. They’ve all bent over backward to do something to help.

"CalMac did a brilliant job of trying to make sure there were spaces despite the fact they were booked up and have been for some time. They did a tremendous job trying to make sure that there was space for medics to get across and help out. There were passengers on the standby lists giving up their spaces to let people through. There were so many people who are part of it and we would like to say thank you to everyone who cares and wants to help."