Unfortunately, the Northern Bottlenose whale had suffered from severe dehydration, which resulted in it suffering from kidney failure, when it became immobilised on Tuesday night.

There was a super rescue scheme, where people tried bravely to salvage the whale’s life. At one point the trained medics felt that the had to issue a lethal injection to put the whale to sleep. Yet, the whale then floated out to sea for one last time. Regrettably, it came back towards the coast again and was beached for a 2nd and last time.

The special vets adjudicated that the only caring thing to do would be to issue the lethal injection, which they did on Friday morning. They used Immobilon, which was a very fast and lethal 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 mammal to die, during which it would have been sick and distressed.

It seemed bizarre that the 6 tonne mammalian, which is usually found about 3000 miles away, finished up here on Hayling Island, but it is another wonderful story that this south coast little island, called Hayling 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.