Picture: Whale stranded 1,000 miles up the Amazon river
mongabay.com
November 17, 2007
An 18-foot minke whale was found beached on a sandbar 1,000 miles up a tributary of the Amazon river, reported Globo television and the Associated Press.
Rescuers were sent to dislodge the marine mammal Friday. Once freed, the whale disappeared.
Courtesy of Globo TV
"It apparently got separated from its group and swam upstream," biologist Fabio Luna told Globo TV. "It's very unusual."
Ibama, Brazil's Environmental Protection Agency, said the whale ran aground Wednesday near Santarem on the Tapajos river in Para state.
The minke whale is the second smallest baleen whale with an average length of about 23 feet. The stranded whale in the Amazon was estimated to weigh 12 tons.
BBC News reports that the whale's presence in the river had been causing alarm among locals near to the Tapajos river. The whale is thought to have been in the area for a couple months.
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