Whale swims up river, attracts a crowd

TRENTON, N.J. – A beluga whale that apparently took a wrong turn wound up in the Delaware River on Tuesday. Within hours, about 100 people gathered along the shore to look.

The 10- to 12-foot whale was spotted downstream from the city’s famed “Trenton Makes The World Takes” bridge, which spans the river at the uppermost reach of its tidal waters.

“Four news helicopters are hovering overhead. The train is stopping on the train trestle, people are lining up along the river. It’s like the city has gone mad,” said Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office who watched the scene unfold from his office. “They might rename the bridge ‘The Beluga Whale Bridge.’”

All the excitement was doing more harm than good, according to a marine mammal expert.

“Right now, our major problem is harassment by boaters,” said Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine. “It’ll never get out of there if they harass it with boats.”

He said the whale may be a juvenile that wasn’t seaworthy or an adult that chased a school of herring up the river. Typically, beluga whales travel in large groups but spread out when feeding.

A right whale – named Waldo the Wrong-Way Right Whale by Philadelphians – straggled into the Delaware River in 1995. The whale beached itself at an oil terminal in Pennsauken, N.J., but disappeared after about 10 days. It was found two years later swimming near Canada.