The Australian military has offered to help rescue a starving whale calf, separated from its mother and trying to suckle from boats off Sydney.
Hopes are fading fast that the calf will survive as attempts to find it a surrogate mother by luring it out to sea have so far failed.
Experts say the calf, nicknamed "Colin" by the Australian media, is growing weaker and has just days to live.
They say that unless it feeds soon, it may have to be put down.
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False alarm as Sydney fly-past sparks attack confusion ... Colin out to sea, where it is hoped that he would stand a chance of being paired with passing whale pod and adopted by a lactating female, have been unsuccessful.
Australia's Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said the navy was ready to step in and help tow Colin out to sea using a fuel bladder, which would act as an inflatable sling, said the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney.
But officials said rescuers were more likely to rely on two pontoons, offered by the Sea World theme park.
'Whale whisperer'
Experts say Colin, aged between one and two months, has not eaten for a week.
The calf needs up to 230 litres of milk a day, a spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare told the AFP news agency.
Colin was first sighted on Sunday just north of Sydney at Pittwater and soon began to try to suckle from a yacht, which it would not leave.
Rescuers towed the boat into open sea hoping that the calf would find another female to suckle from, but the attempt failed and the whale returned to an inlet near Sydney. On Wednesday, another attempt also failed.
The whale has since been trying to suckle from other boats.
Sad sight
"It sounded like a bit of a vacuum cleaner on the bottom of the boat. I finally got up and here's this whale suckling the side of the boat," sailor Peter Lewis told a commercial radio station.
"It was a very, very sad sight. It did it for about an hour, going from side to side on the boat and at times blowing air under the boat, and it just seemed to give a sigh out at one stage as if, you know, 'this isn't working'."
Euthanasia was "the most likely outcome, but we are not at that point yet", Chris McIntosh, a spokesman for the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, told AFP.
Another assessment of the whale's condition will take place on Thursday and a decision will be made on what is best for it, said Mr McIntosh.
One suggestion put forward by an Australian scientist was to construct an artificial teat to feed milk formula to the whale.
However, experts say that the whale needs so much milk that the idea was not an option.
The humpback whales are on the return leg of an annual round trip from the Antarctic to tropical waters to breed.
They can often be seen quite close to Sydney's beaches.
"Our hearts are breaking with what's happening with baby Colin," New South Wales state premier Morris Iemma was quoted by Reuters as saying.
"It's looking bleak, but every effort is being made."
(BBC)
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