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Beluga Whale Apparently Leaves Del. River

Posted on: Tuesday, 19 April 2005, 11:07 CDT

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- The beluga whale that spent a week in the Delaware River was en route to the ocean when he was last seen, and officials were taking to the air Tuesday to make sure.

Wildlife and Coast Guard officials said that the 12-foot mammal known as Helis had not been spotted Tuesday morning.

He was last seen late Monday afternoon, swimming south near Fortescue, N.J., on the Delaware Bay, said officials with the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service. The spot where the whale was last seen was within about 20 miles of the Atlantic Ocean.

Coast Guard helicopters were on the lookout for the beluga Tuesday.

Helis was spotted in Trenton on April 12. Over the course of the next four days, he swam a loop between there and Beverly, about 15 miles to the south.

Whale-watching became a popular activity for people on boats and riverbanks in the area, more than 100 miles north of open waters. The whale made his way south to Camden on Sunday.

The whale, estimated to be about 30 years old, was named Helis by Canadian officials when he was found near the St. Lawrence River in 1986.

The whale's name, pronounced ay'-LEE, is derived from the French word helice, or propeller. Some experts believe a scar on Helis came from a boat propeller.

Beluga whales, which can live about 40 years, are most often found in colder waters in the Atlantic Ocean.

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