A humpback whale surfaces as it swims in the Saint Lawerence River in the Old Port of Montreal, May 30, 2020.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
A wayward humpback whale has strayed from her usual habitat and ended up in the Montreal area on Saturday – a first according to marine mammal experts.
The whale was spotted underneath the Jacques Cartier Bridge, near the city’s La Ronde amusement park, early in the afternoon.
Marie-Eve Muller, a spokeswoman for the Quebec Marine Mammal Emergency Response Network, said it’s unclear what led the whale to wander so far astray or how long it might stick around Montreal before turning around.
But Muller said the whale might have reached the end of its journey along the St. Lawrence River in the Montreal area.
“The current is quite strong, it’s trying to go up but it’s having a hard time fighting the current,” Muller said, adding the whale wasn’t showing any signs of distress.
“It’s swimming freely so that’s good, it means it can move around as it needs,” she added. “It’s hard to predict if it has hit the end of the road and will turn around and hopefully go back to her other humpback whale friends in Tadoussac or Gaspe,” she said.
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