Noon Update: Hope Is Dimming For Wayward Whales

May 24, 2007

(Sacramento) Hope dimmed Wednesday for two lost, wounded whales as scientists spotted the humpbacks wildly slapping their tails on the water in possible distress as they lingered far from their ocean home. Deep cuts on the mother whale and her calf, likely caused by a run-in with a boat, were worsening after more than a week in freshwater surroundings that the pair were not physically well-equipped to inhabit, biologists said.