Whale of a Time

I don't know how many of you have been as fascinated by the whales in the Sacramento shipping channel as I am, but when I read about how they had been injured by boat propellers it literally brought tears to my eyes. I guess you could say I'm an animal lover.

Here's the article about their situation yesterday that made me so sad. After reading that I felt compelled to stay up to the minute on their progress in hopes of hearing the good news that they were headed back to sea. Alas, that is not the case yet.

Today when looking for the latest news, I came across the NOAA incident report where you can see close up pictures of the wound on the mom and hear the sounds the wales make (mostly just the scientists oohing and the sound of what I think was a blowhole spurt) and the sounds that they are using to lure the whales out. The "travel" one is pretty funny. I think I'd run the other way if I heard that coming from someone!

I hope they make it out of there soon. The experts say it could take a while, and the fact that the mom is nursing might make her less interested in the feeding sounds. Or that the sounds they're using are from a different pod of whales from alaska, so it might be like we're yelling in Chinese to whales who speak English.

Gotta hand it to the Chron today - their headline at the top of the paper was: Wii, Wine, Whales and Warriers. I guess those are the things that matter to this town.

And in other animal news - just came across this article too on the chron site. Baby peregrine falcons were born recently atop San Jose City hall. It's a heartwarming tale...