Lost Leviathan

Nature should have told him that when he heads south from Alaska during his herd's annual autumn migration to warmer water, he has to bear right at San Francisco. Instead, the 40-ton, 40-ft. humpback whale turned left and headed inland under the Golden Gate Bridge. For more than a week he has been swimming aimlessly in the shallow Sacramento River delta 40 miles northeast of San Francisco, a freshwater environment that eventually may kill the giant saltwater mammal.

The loss of Humphrey, as the nearby Rio Vista whale watchers have named him, would be a serious one. The humpback whale is an endangered species: only some 12,000 still exist, about 5% to 10% of the original population. "They used to be very good hunting," says Mark Ferrari, a whale photographer who has helped coordinate efforts to direct the whale back to the sea.

Humphrey has been less than cooperative with would-be rescuers. He has outmaneuvered tugboats that tried to herd him, and disdained efforts to lure him toward salt water with tape recordings of his breed's distinctive sounds. Towing, says Ferrari, "has always been disastrous. We could drown him or tangle him." Though fresh water will inevitably wear down the oceangoing creature, optimistic experts predict the whale can survive for more than two weeks in the brackish tides of the delta. That gives Humphrey's helpers the slim hope that with time to reconsider his position, he will find his way back to the safe and salty Pacific.