ripvanwinkle
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2006
- Messages
- 57
LONDON, England - A whale swam up the River Thames past Parliament and Big Ben in central London on Friday, then beached itself.
The whale was a Northern bottlenose, said Richard Sabian, a zoologist at the Natural History Museum in London, who went to the scene.
"I can confirm reports that it is a whale," he said, as television networks provided live coverage.
Sabian said such whales rarely swim in the nearby English Channel and this was the first sighting of one in the River Thames since the museum began recording them in 1913.
The British Divers Marine Life Rescue group said it would help the whale if it became stranded. At one point the whale appeared to get stuck in shallow water in the River Thames, and officials wearing yellow jackets could be seen running up and down the shoreline at low tide trying to push it back into deeper water.
Witnesses, including people riding in boats and walking along the banks of the river, first spotted the whale near Parliament and said it appeared to be 20 feet long.
"I saw it blow. It was a spout of water which sparkled in the air," said Tom Howard-Vyne, a spokesman for London Eye, the large Ferris wheel on the banks of the river. "It was an amazing sight."
He said he saw the mammal swim under Westminster Bridge near Big Ben.
Television showed a police boat alongside the whale, apparently to shield it from other shipping in the river.
The Northern bottlenose whale is found in the North Atlantic and is known for readily approaching boats. It can reach nearly 30 feet in length and weigh nearly 8 tons.
ITA
