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Delta & Dawn...Back to Sea?
It sounds as if the humpback whale mother and calf who strayed from the Pacific Ocean to the Port of Sacramento found their way back to the ocean a couple of weeks ago. Let's hope their wounds are healing and that they're back on track with their proper migration pattern, probably heading to Alaska to feed. We heard a radio reporter wondering what the whales were eating while they were inland; he was worried that they might starve to death. If anyone else was concerned about this, it was probably not the most urgent issue at hand because the calf was surviving on its mother's milk and the mother often goes months without eating after giving birth and migrating back to summer feeding grounds...likely near Alaska. During migration, they usually don't eat, but once they arrive in the rich feeding grounds up north, they will eat and eat for a few months and will store up large reserves of blubber that allow them to survive without eating for long periods of time.