River Thames whale was malnourished, post-mortem tests show Published image copyrightReuters image captionThe whale was loaded on to the back of a truck at Teddington lifeboat station and taken to Whipsnade Zoo A juvenile minke whale that had to be put down after becoming stranded in the River Thames had starved "over a few days", vets have found. The one-tonne whale was rescued after getting stuck in Richmond Lock, but escaped and was later found beached against a river wall in Teddington. It was put down after vets found its condition was "rapidly deteriorating". Full results of the post-mortem tests carried out on the female minke are not expected for a few weeks.