Inky the pygmy sperm whale has returned to Baltimore's National Aquarium -- on videotape, starring in an educational documentary on the marine pollution that nearly took her life in the Atlantic a year ago.
About 150 volunteers, aquarium staff members, government and military personnel who helped rescue, rehabilitate and return the young whale to her ocean home attended the premiere of "Saving Inky" Tuesday night.
The video is a return on the investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of it in donated services by federal agencies, from the time Inky was found critically ill on a New Jersey beach on Thanksgiving 1993, through her release and nearly a week of electronic tracking from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship Relentless in June.
"Saving Inky" was a cooperative venture between the National Aquarium and the Coast Guard, Environmental Protection Agency and National Marine Fisheries Service, all of which intend to use the video as an educational tool in hopes of reducing marine trash -- particularly plastic.
Inky's problem was a stomach blockage of plastic trash, including pieces of a Mylar balloon, a green plastic trash bag and a cellophane cigarette box wrapper.
"This was an animal that stranded for a single reason, and that's because we throw junk into the ocean, or we throw junk where it shouldn't be and it finds its way into the ocean," says Dr. Joseph H. Geraci, a consulting veterinarian and marine mammal expert shown tending Inky in the video.
Amid scenes of sea birds wading in a debris-strewn waterway and a sea turtle nibbling at red plastic trash, Jim Coe, the National Marine Fisheries' entanglement program manager, describes how up to 130 marine species can become snared by floating refuse, and that 160 species ingest such pollutants.
But it is Inky's presence that empowers the message -- much as aquarium officials had anticipated when the whale's story began receiving national publicity and they began planning the documentary at Dr. Geraci's suggestion.
The creature has a tightly drawn, but curiously expressive mouth, and eyes that seem to suggest a keen marine intelligence -- and vulnerability.
Inky appears frail in the early days, under constant care by volunteers and veterinarians. She shows gradual improvement after the plastic is removed from her digestive system, interacting with the humans trying to keep her stimulated and active.
In the final scenes, she swims free in the deep blue sea 40 miles off the Florida coast.
The 15-minute video will give the public a close-up look at Inky in classrooms across the country though programs put on by the various federal agencies, and at the National Aquarium where it will be shown regularly beginning early next year.
The aquarium has other versions of "Saving Inky" in the works -- a much shorter one for continuous screening in its Habitat Theater, and another running 40 minutes or longer that the staff hopes will reach a larger audience through public television or a cable market such as the Discovery Channel.