Residents of a luxury dockside neighbourhood in Buenos Aires have welcomed an unexpected new neighbour – a whale.
Advertisement
A stray whale on Monday waded into a dike at the Puerto Madero Marina in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, drawing crowds of onlookers.
The six-meter-long humpback minke whale suddenly appeared “near the yachts moored at the Yacht Club, looking lost”, the state news agency Telam reported.
“Its health does not appear to be the best”, Fundacion Cethus president Miguel Iñiguez told the TN television network on Tuesday, adding that the whale appeared to be “skinny”. She said it was likely making its first migration without its mother and got disoriented.
Roxana Schteinbarg is the executive coordinator of the Whale Conservation Institute in Argentina.
A lost whale swims near boats in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, August 3, 2015.
Advertisement
Spotting them is a big tourist attraction between May and December but they are not often spied in fresh water. A port police boat was seen going up and down the waterway, apparently trying to lure the animal to the connecting Rio de la Plata river, which feeds into the Atlantic.
