Beached baby whale returned to sea, but no sign of mum

A baby whale that beached in Australia has been returned to the ocean, but fears remained Monday over whether the infant humpback would be able to find its mother.The week-old whale landed at Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast in the early hours of Monday and was returned to deep water some 12 hours later in an operation that involved rescuers hauling the calf into the surf.Staff from the nearby Sea World marine park and Gold Coast lifeguards searched from air and sea for the calf's mother without success."The hope of this exercise is that he will now be able to communicate with his mother but we don't know where his mother is," said Sea World's Trevor Long, who directed the rescue involving some 50 people."However, they can communicate for many tens of kilometres so if his mother is 20 or 30 kilometres away she might be able to pick him up."Long said the animal had been lying on one pectoral fin all night and was clearly sore and not moving freely. The baby would also only survive for up to five days without feeding from its mother, he added.He admitted the creature could return to the beach. "We've done everything we can at this stage but at some point in time we'll have to leave the animal and let nature take its course," he said.