A pilot whale washed up on the Jersey shore and died shortly afterward of a jaw infection caused by a bullet from a .30-calibre rifle:

www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-...

latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/...

New Jersey authorities have said that, although people shoot dolphins and seals every year, they've never encountered a whale that had been shot. 

The poor creature died a lingering death brought on by infection.

As the authorities have reported, they're not sure where or when, or even why, the shooting occurred, but they are looking for the culprit.

    

  

   

Maybe Sperm Whales have started packing heat.

Oct 6, 2011 -- 5:41PM, solfeggio wrote:

Now, see, mytmouse, that was a cruel, insensitive thing to say.  And I'm surprised at you, because you're not the sort of person to say things like that.

That poor whale died a slow death of starvation because of the wound to his mouth.  He lost half of his body weight just drifting endlessly in the waves, probably just generally feeling miserable.

No innocent creature, human or nonhuman, should have to suffer like that simply because some idiot decided that it would be fun to take a shot at him.

Of course, if guns weren't so readily available to every incompetent bozo who wants one, maybe things like this wouldn't happen.

 

A reward is being offered to identify the shooter, but also a little news from NZ :

And sometimes they actually produce results. "Our reward program recently led to the arrest and the conviction of a man in New Zealand for clubbing seal pups to death," says Watson, who runs the group best known for chasing Japanese whalers on the cable TV show "Whale Wars."

Payment of that reward — the New Zealand equivalent of $8,800 — is pending conclusion of the case in which a second man also could be convicted.

And it gives me just a moment to breathe easy; one bit of wickedness in the world was done by someons other than an American.  Must be bad reporting.