The ordeal of a whale stranded in Larne Lough unable to escape to open sea finally came to an end yesterday evening when, after it was beached, a vet put it out of its misery with three lethal injections.
For three days, members of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, urged on by the public, tried to guide and coax the whale out of the lough.
A 300m exclusion order around the whale was created to try to prevent it getting disturbed or disorientated by passing boats such as the large ferries passing in and out of Larne Harbour.
The would-be whale-rescuers almost succeeded on Wednesday evening when it was nearly guided out of the lough but the exhaustion of the distressed whale, which appeared to be suffering from an infection, and the receding tide ruined that effort.
By yesterday, while it was still hoped the whale might swim to safety, it was being generally conceded that time was running out.
Yesterday evening, the whale, which had been swimming in ever-decreasing circles, beached near Islandmagee.
A vet waded in and administered three injections to the whale which died a matter of minutes later.
The mammal was originally thought to be a minke whale but experts later decided it was a young fin whale about 12m long and weighing about 15 tons.
"They are the second-largest animal on the planet, second only to the blue whale," according to the whale group.
"This is the first record of a fin whale in Northern Irish waters since . . . 1907," it added.
Experts suspect the heat-wave may explain the high number of whales and dolphins off Irish and British shores.