Wayward whales swim halfway home

SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- A wayward mother whale and her calf were nearly halfway back to the Pacific Ocean with several obstacles still to overcome Monday, a week after taking a wrong turn and swimming inland to the state capital.

The humpbacks, nicknamed Delta and Dawn, were stalled briefly overnight when they began heading upstream in the Sacramento River on their 90-mile homeward journey, forcing scientists and the Coast Guard to position boats in front of them to turn them around.

But early Monday, they were back on track, spotted just north of Rio Vista about 45 miles southwest of Sacramento.

"The plan is to keep boats behind them, trying to coax them in the direction we want them to go," Carrie Wilson, a marine biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, said Monday.

Scientists continued to watch the whales closely because their route includes sloughs leading to muddy deltas that could trap them.

The two, who appear to have been wounded by a boat's propeller are in otherwise good health.

They also will have to get through the pylons of four bridges to reach the San Francisco Bay and will have to swim under the Golden Gate Bridge to return to the ocean, Wilson said.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/21/delta.whales.ap/index.html