The whale, first seen Wednesday near Raymond, was spotted again in the same area on Thursday, according to the Cascadia Research Collective. <\/p>\n
WILLAPA, Wash. \u2014 A juvenile gray whale has found its way part way up the Willapa River in Pacific County.<\/p>\n
The whale, first seen Wednesday near Raymond, was spotted again in the same area on Thursday, according to the Cascadia Research Collective.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though the whale is thin, it was behaving normally and did not appear to be injured, according to Jessie Huggins, research biologist with the Collective.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though this does not happen often, it is not unheard of, Huggins said.<\/p>\n
Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife spokesperson Bridget Mire confirmed the reported whale sightings. Fish & Wildlife, the Cascadia Research Collective and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are monitoring the situation, according to Mire.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As of Wednesday, the whale was “actively feeding and swimming,” according to Mire.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fish & Wildlife had not received reports of sightings by around midday Thursday. A team from the Collective went out to relocate the whale and could not initially find it. However, when contacted a few hours later, the Collective said it had returned to the area near Raymond. Fish & Wildlife later confirmed a report of another sighting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Huggins said they’ll continue to monitor the whale’s behavior, giving it time and space to find it’s way out of the river. A larger response is being planned for Friday if that does not occur.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fish & Wildlife and the Collective encourage people to report entangled or stranded whales immediately, while also keeping their distance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fish & Wildlife encourages people to report to the National Marine Fisheries Service entanglement response hotline at 1-877-767-9425, or hailing the U.S. Coast Guard on Channel 16.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cascadia Research Collective also encourages people to report sightings to its stranding hotline at 360-791-9555.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The whale, first seen Wednesday near Raymond, was spotted again in the same area on Thursday, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-561503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}