A lone beluga whale, far from its Alaskan home, has been swimming in Puget Sound waters off Tacoma this week and whale experts don’t know why.
The Orca Network confirmed the white whale was a beluga after boater Jason Rogers shot video of it in Commencement Bay Sunday. It was near a barge stacked with smashed automobiles. Other reports put the whale off the shores of Point Defiance Park and Fox Island.
“While exciting, there is great concern for this beluga who is far from home, and being a social animal concern they are alone and away from their pod,” wrote the Orca Network on its Facebook page.
On Monday, the white whale was spotted in the waters off Seattle.
Howard Garrett, the Network’s co-founder, said it was spotted Tuesday near the Bremerton shipyards.
“I saw (the video) and my first thought was ‘that’s a beluga’ but that can’t be,” Garrett said Wednesday. The previous confirmed sighting of a wild beluga in Puget Sound was in 1940, he said.
Tacoma’s last beluga had a name — Beethoven — and lived at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. It left the zoo in 2009 to return to SeaWorld in San Antonio where it was born and could live with other belugas. It spent 11 years in Tacoma.
The nearest population of belugas are found some 1,500 miles away in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s not known if the recently sighted beluga comes from that group.
Garrett doesn’t know why a lone beluga would be in Puget Sound. The whales’ diet consists of squid, small fish and crustaceans.
“There’s plenty of that in Puget Sound,” he said.
The sighting of a lone beluga is unusual, whale experts say, because they live in social groups. The mammals can produce a range of vocal sounds and sometimes are known as the “canaries of the sea.” Belugas like coastal inlets and lack a dorsal fin enabling them to swim under sea ice. They can also enter fresh water.
The oldest known beluga on record was 80, according to NOAA. The animals can reach 16 feet and weigh more than 3,000 pounds.
The Network forwarded the sighting to NOAA, Cascadia Research Collective and other groups and experts who all concurred it was a beluga.
The Network urges boaters to stay at least 100 yards from the whale and report it as soon as possible.
“It is hoped that researchers can get on water as soon as possible to do a visual health assessment of the animal and collect photo ID shots and keep track of this whale,” the Network said.
Report sightings to the Whale Sighting Network at 360-331-3543 or toll-free at 866-672-2638; or email at: inf
alis
866-767-6114.
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