The Western Cape environmental affairs department's marine and coastal management said on Thursday it regretted the "vicious and personal attacks" made by a marine conservation society when it called for scientist Mike Meyer to be dismissed.

The Sea Shepherd is a society aiming to protect oceans around the world. It is based in Friday Harbour, Washington in the United States and in Melbourne, Australia for its Southern Hemisphere operations.

The Sea Shepherd called for Meyer to be dismissed on grounds of incompetence and threatened to boycott South African wine exports.

This came after attempts to rescue a group of stranded false killer whales on the Kommetjie Beach in the Western Cape ended with 44 of the mammals being euthanised at the weekend.

The department said Meyer was a Derek Krige medallist, an award granted by the marine scientific community for lifetime achievements in technical aspects of marine science.

"He has more than 30 years experience in working with marine mammals, including whales and is by far the most experienced person able to assess situations such as these," the department said.

It said after the beaching of whales on Saturday, Meyer was given "full authority" by the department to take decisions on how to deal with the stranded animals.

The accepted procedure in these case was that Meyer consults the SPCA and a veterinarian on decisions that may need to be taken on euthanasia.

"This procedure was followed in this case."

Other key units

Other role players included the University of Pretoria's Mammal Research Institute, Navy, SPCA, police, law enforcement, NSRI and the city's Disaster Management and Environmental Unit.

"After an entire day of struggling to save the animals under very difficult conditions, by which time five had already died, a collaborative consensus was reached by the relevant role players that the rest of the mammals were also doomed and that they would suffer unnecessarily if not euthanised."

The department said Meyer carried out his responsibility in administering the shots to put the animals out of their misery.

"The marine and coastal management fully supports Meyer and believes he acted in the best interest of the mammals, and within his mandate."

The department said it was criticised by some people for waiting "too long" before putting the animals out of their misery.

The department began with post-mortems on the 44 whales on Monday.

Sapa

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