Scientists Looking for Wayward Whales

A crowd of people watch two whales pass under the Carquinez Bridge in Crockett, Calif., Tuesday, May 29, 2007. The whales lost in the Sacramento River made considerable progress in their quest to return to the Pacific Ocean. They were first spotted May 13 and got as far as 90 miles inland to the Port of Sacramento before turning around. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) (Paul Sakuma - AP)

"What we ultimately came away with is that many of the techniques had some effect, but none of them could make a whale go in a direction it did not want to go," said John Calambokidis, a scientist with the nonprofit Cascadia Research Collective.

Biologists said the saltier water where the mother humpback whale and her calf had been swimming since leaving the delta helped reverse some of the health problems caused by long exposure to fresh water.

Officials were unsure how much was spent on the rescue efforts, but they insisted the expenditures of time and money were justified, if not required under wildlife protection laws.

"We certainly have a moral obligation as the agency assigned to protect them to do everything practical to get them safely into their natural habitat," said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Biologists originally had planned to attach a satellite tracking tag to the mother humpback, but gusty winds and malfunctioning equipment stymied them. Distinct markings on both whales' tails were photographed so they could be identified in the future, Fees said.

They might even make another inland trip someday. Humphrey, a humpback that famously strayed into San Francisco Bay in 1985, reappeared there five years later.

"If we learned anything about these two, it is that they will do what they do when they want to do it," Fees said.

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Associated Press writer Lisa Leff in Vallejo contributed to this report.