Beluga whale sighted off Seattle, Tacoma waterfronts

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A white whale has been spotted along the waterfront promenades in Seattle and Tacoma.

Call it Moby Duwamish.

Or Moby Defiance.

This pale whale is much smaller than Captain Ahab’s archenemy in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

Spotted in Tacomas Commencement Bay on Sunday, it was floating quietly between a sailboat and a barge full of junk. Boater Jason Rogers recorded a video of the white whale close enough to hear it exhale and reported it to the nonprofit Orca Network.

The whale was seen in Seattle’s Elliott Bay on Monday.

Marine mammal experts soon confirmed it was a beluga whale 2,500 miles or more from the closest known population of its species in Alaska’s Cook Inlet.

WATCH: Video of a beluga whale swimming in Tacomas Commencement Bay on October 3rd

Belugas are usually found in the Arctic Ocean and nearby subarctic waters.

The National Marine Fisheries Service says belugas can number in the hundreds of thousands worldwide, although the Cook Inlet population of the species is believed to be endangered, at around 280 individuals.

Aside from being white from melon-shaped head to tail, belugas are uncommon among whales because they do not have a dorsal fin. Their streamlined back allows them to swim right under the sea ice that forms in their normal places each winter.

They live to be up to 90 years old, reach 16 feet in length, and weigh more than 3,000 pounds.

Belugas make so many different noises, including chirping, clicking, moss, squeaking, and whistling, that they are sometimes called “canaries of the sea”.

It is extremely rare, if not uncommon, for a beluga to swim this far south.

“I can’t explain why it’s here, and I’ve never heard anyone come up with a plausible theory,” Orca Network’s Howard Garrett said in an email. “Sometimes whales and dolphins just seem to be walking.”

National Geographic reports that in 1940 a beluga was sighted “off the coast of Washington State”.

A whale watch captain documented a beluga near San Diego last July. By October it had washed up dead in a lagoon in Baja California 400 miles south.

“Belugas are social whales that live and travel in pods, so a lonely beluga will have a hard time and we hope he / she can get home safely,” Orca Network’s Susan Berta said in an email.

The researchers urge the public to stay at least 100 meters from the whale as required by federal law and report all sightings immediately to the Orca Network at 1-360-331-3543 or the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Marine Mammal Stranding Network at 1. to report -866-767-6114.

WATCH: Video of a beluga whale swimming off San Diego in July 2020