Whales Lost The Way Back To Pacific

They were already swimming back to the ocean, but they didn't pass the Rio Vista bridge on the Sacramento River between San Francisco and Sacramento, maybe because the sounds of vehicles passing on the bridge frightened them. Scientists played sounds of boats to make the whales pass the bridge, but it didn't work, they started swimming again up the river.

The wounded female whale and her calf have spent more than a week in freshwater, which is very bad for their health, their wounds (the calf has 3-4 foot cut on its side) are not recovering at all in freshwater. Moreover, staying too long in fresh water makes their smooth and shiny skin become rough and pitted.
"They don't seem to be healing at all in the freshwater," said National Marine Fisheries service biologist told. "It's not just the wounds. It's the skin in general. Freshwater isn't good."

Scientists will again try playing recorded sounds of feeding from the down side of the river, but if that doesn't work, they'll try recorded sounds of killer whales attacking the mother and the calf, trying to frighten them and make them to pass the Rio Vista bridge and swim back to Pacific.

The whales have been seen slapping their tails on the water, which is a sign of stress. This makes the scientists confused, because they know, that a stressed whale is very unexpected. These two whales are also wounded, and so the scientists don't know at all how they will react on the killer sound.

Scientist don't promise anything, they'll try the do the most they can to take the whales back home, but they don't have any strategy to make it. The only thing they can do is just to hope that whales will swim back by themselves.

By Ruzan Harutyunyan for HULIQ