Mere feet from the open water, where its pod called for it, the 13-year-old killer whale was in dire straits as the hours passed on Thursday morning. The whale, stuck near the eastern shore of Prince of Wales Island, caught the attention of people on a passing boat, who called the U.S. Coast Guard before 9 a.m., said Julie Fair, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokeswoman, in an email to The Washington Post. The stranded whale was four to five feet above the tide line when NOAA first learned about it.

Source: Washington Post August 03, 2021 21:11 UTC