Humphrey the Wayward Whale Sighted Summering Near S.F.

Humphrey, the celebrity humpback whale rescued from the Sacramento River Delta last fall, has been sighted for the first time since it swam under the Golden Gate Bridge and out to sea, federal officials announced Friday.

The sighting was made by a team of whale researchers about 35 miles west of San Francisco.

The whale appeared to be healthy and swimming normally as it fed on krill with a group of more than 50 humpback whales about seven miles west of the Farallon Islands, said researcher Ken Balcomb, who is heading a federal study of humpbacks in the area.

Balcomb said he and his fellow researchers spotted Humphrey last Saturday as they photographed between 50 and 100 whales feeding near the Farallon Islands. But it was not until Thursday, when Balcomb had developed the photos, that he realized they had come across the famous whale.

“It’s unquestionably Humphrey,” Balcomb said in a telephone interview from his home in Washington state.

Photos Compared

Balcomb said he identified the whale by comparing photographs taken last week with shots of Humphrey taken last October and November during the whale’s 26-day journey up and down the river. Scientists are able to identify individual humpback whales by distinctive patterns on the underside of their tail flukes.

Word of the discovery elated researchers and volunteers who had helped rescue Humphrey from a shallow slough 70 miles from the Pacific Ocean and then herded him down the Sacramento River to San Francisco Bay and then out into the Pacific.

“I think it’s absolutely fantastic,” said whale researcher Deborah Glockner-Ferrari, who with her husband, Mark, helped inspire the rescue effort. “The more it sinks in the more excited I get. It means the rescue operation was definitely a success.”

Balcomb’s group sighted the whale while doing research for the Point Reyes-Farallon Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Officials of the federal sanctuary and the private California Marine Mammal Center announced the sighting Friday.

“This is an emotional thing for us all,” said Piegin Barrett, director of the Marine Mammal Center, which participated in the massive rescue effort. “It proves he is alive and well and that it (the rescue) was worth it.”

Has Companion

Balcomb said Humphrey was spotted swimming along with one companion. The scientist said he is attempting to identify that whale from other photographs in the hope of determining where it may have been sighted previously.

The whales at the Farallons, 26 miles west of San Francisco, appear to be a distinctive feeding population that migrates from the waters off Hawaii and Mexico during the summer months, Balcomb said. Other humpbacks are known to travel as far north as Alaska to feed at this time of year.

Sheridan Stone, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service who also participated in Humphrey’s rescue, said the sighting indicates that it is possible the wayward humpback was feeding there last year when it left the group and swam into San Francisco Bay.

Humphrey captured national attention when volunteers on boats drove the 40-ton mammal from the slough south of Sacramento, where it was stuck behind a small bridge.

Hundreds of volunteers joined in the rescue as dozens of private boats, Navy patrol boats and Army vessels helped drive the animal down the river to the ocean.