Dawn Smith on “A Whale Alone”

There is no audio recording of “A Whale Alone.” I tried several times but could never get past the words “Alex was dead” without my voice breaking. It stunned me to realize that, so many years after the fact, I was still deeply affected by his death.

In writing the first draft, I relived the excitement of my first live cetacean stranding, the terror of knowing I was out of my depth, the frustration of not knowing how to care properly for these animals; and as time went on, the sorrow of knowing we could not save them. That first, much longer version, included more about the rescue at the beach, more about Nick, and more about me and my job.

Spending time with Alex after Nick died, I realized just how alone he was. True, Marine World staff swam with him most days, and when we fed him, we spent time in the water with him, but that was a few hours a day. He was a whale alone. I trimmed the essay. It became Alex’s story.

After Nick died, the crowd of biologists, doctors, and veterinarians ebbed, the core crew from the two facilities (TMMC and Marine World) left to make sure Alex got the best possible care we could offer. A couple of biologists stayed on. One studying cetacean communication wanted to learn what, if any, sounds Alex might make while on his own. The other was the person who, after many false starts, found a nipple that Alex would suckle on, a huge breakthrough. From there, we could bottle feed him, no longer needing to put a tube down his throat.

The night I wrote about in “A Whale Alone,” I was supposed to be in another part of Marine World to speak about the whales at an outdoor public event. Bad weather canceled the talk and one volunteer scheduled to be with Alex couldn’t make their shift, so I stepped in.

I didn’t know it would be the last time I would see him alive. I didn’t know he would stay with me for so long, as sometimes he would only suckle for a few minutes before going off on his own. One can speculate on what he was thinking, how he was feeling, but, like so many things about his time with us, we will never know. I only know how special it felt just to spend time with him, to know I was giving him at least a modicum of comfort.

Still, as I look back, I wonder if we did right by Alex. This is a dilemma that wildlife rehabilitators often face. We do the best we can, but lack of knowledge often hampers us, having to make things up as we go along. Once invested in an animal, it is hard to stop and review the situation, and easy to lose sight of the welfare of that individual, when we focus too hard on keeping him or her alive.  

This may be one reason I still struggle with Alex’s story. Perhaps one day I will be able to record his story without my voice breaking. Perhaps I never will. Some animals just don’t let you go, and you can never know ahead of time, or even during the time you are working with them, which ones will touch you most deeply.