News archive 2006

King's student helps with whale rescue

23 January 2006, PR06/06

The drama of a bottle-nosed whale swimming up the Thames to central London has dominated the world's press over the last few days. Sadly, despite supreme efforts to take the seven-tonne mammal back to the sea, the story ended tragically when it died after suffering convulsions whilst being transported down river to deeper water in the Thames Estuary.

King's Environmental Sciences student, Edwin Timewell, described by The Times as ‘one of the heroes of the hour', was involved with the dramatic rescue attempts.

On Saturday morning swimming close to the north bank by Chelsea Bridge, the 18 foot (5m) northern bottle-nosed whale, which is usually found in deep sea waters, approached Cadogan Pier and headed into a dead end between the embankment and a pontoon of moored boats. He was virtually trapped.

Edwin, a final year student, who is also a member of the Atlantic Whale Foundation, who had gone to the river, waded waist deep into the muddy water, closely followed by another bystander. Together they splashed water on the whale, nudging him gently, and freeing him from the rope.

He commented: ‘I was splashing water at the whale, saying ‘come on boy, you don't want to die here'.

He also said of the creature at the time: ‘It's heavily scarred, and it's got what looks like an infected wound behind the left eye, and it seems to be tired and exhausted.'

King's College London

King's College London is one of the two oldest and largest colleges of the University of London with over 13,800 undergraduate students and nearly 5,700 postgraduates in nine schools of study. It is a member of the Russell Group: a coalition of the UK's major research-based universities. The College has had 24 of its subject-areas awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research quality, demonstrating excellence at an international level, and it has recently received an excellent result in its audit by the Quality Assurance Agency.

King's is in the top group of UK universities for research earnings, with income from grants and contracts of £100 million, and has an annual turnover of more than £348 million. In 2004 the College was once again awarded an AA- financial credit rating from Standard & Poor's.

Further information

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Tel: 020 7848 3202 Email: pr@kcl.ac.uk

 

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