One of the 10 pilot whales rescued from a Fife beach has died after stranding again.
Rescuers spent much of Sunday freeing the surviving members of the pod which washed up near Anstruther in the early hours.
However, rather than swimming out to sea as hoped they made their way up the Firth of Forth to the port of Leith, where one became stranded again. The other nine turned away and experts hope they have gone out to sea.
Seventeen whales, including three calves, died on Sunday after the 27-strong pod beached on rocks between Pittenweem and Anstruther.
The desperate efforts of a team of experts, including Forth Coastguard, the RNLI lifeboat from Anstruther, vets and marine life rescue squads saw 10 of them refloated and sent on their way.
A second group of 24 pilot whales, thought to be from the same pod, was spotted in shallow water near Cellardyke but they later dispersed.
On Monday, the sombre task of recovering the remaining whale carcasses began.
The awkward location of nine of the mammals at the bottom of a steep, 40-metre cliff made the operation tricky but moving them by sea was quickly ruled out due to the tides.
Instead, a contractor from Cupar was called in to help winch the massive remains up the cliffside an ignominious end for the majestic beasts.
Vets from the State Veterinary Service and the Scottish Agricultural College were at the scene to carry out post mortems on the carcasses in a bid to find out why they stranded.
Then, after being hauled through the thick gorse covering the cliff and across the Fife coastal path, they were laid out in a row in the field.
Four others were beached at a slipway at Anstruther and a further four could be seen on rocks below houses at Pittenweem.
All 17 were then placed in specially lined skips before being taken to a specialist contractor in the north of Scotland for disposal.
Dr Bob McLellan, head of Fife Council’s environmental services department, said he had never dealt with a situation of this scale.
”It probably couldn’t have happened in a more inaccessible place,” he said. ”It’s an incredibly awkward site as we have no direct road access and the whales are lying at the bottom of a cliff.
”However, to move them out to sea would be problematic because of the tides.”
He added: ”The people yesterday did a really, really good job and managed to rescue 10. Today this is a recovery operation with 17 carcasses which we are removing in a winching-type operation. It will probably take all day and part of tomorrow.”
Asked about the four stranded at Pittenweem, he said, ”It’s unlikely the water will come in and take the carcasses in. We have had the offer of a boat from Pittenweem to take them but we are not looking at doing anything from the sea today.
”We would need to move them from there along to where we are winching and that’s going to be a bit of an issue.”