Last Monday, something astounding happened on little old Hayling Island. an 8 m long Northern Bottlenose whale beached on a mudflat just north of Hayling in Langstone Harbour, Hampshire.

Upsettingly, the Northern Bottlenose had suffered from severe dehydration, which resulted in it suffering from renal failure, when it became entangled on Saturday night.

There was a huge rescue system, where individuals attempted tirelessly to save the Northern Bottlenose whale’s life. There was a time when the team thought that the kind thing to do would be to put the stupefying animal to sleep with a lethal injection. But, the whale then drifted out to sea for one last time. Unluckily, it came back towards the harbour again and was beached for a second and last time.

The special vets decided that the only caring thing to do would be to supply the lethal injection, which they did on Friday morning. They used Immobilon, which was a very quick acting and fatal strength of anaesthetic.

If the mammal wasn’t put to sleep, the experts believe that it would have taken about 2 further days for the whale to die, during which it would have been sick and distressed.

It seemed bizarre that the six tonne mammalian, which is normally found about 3000 miles away, finished up here on Hayling Island, but it is another wonderful story that Hampshire’s Hayling Island brings to its history.

There were around a dozen firefighters, police, coastguard personnel as well as members of the Hayling Island harvour lifeboat staff involved in the attempt.