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ALAMEDA — A humpback whale that showed up off the Alameda shoreline last month and quickly captured the hearts of onlookers as it dipped and splashed in the bay has moved on.
But exactly where “Allie” — as the whale is known to its fans — is now is a bit of a mystery.
“At this point, we don’t know where it is,” Bill Keener, an associate researcher with the Marine Mammal Center of Sausalito, said Monday afternoon.
Keener suspects the whale still might be somewhere in San Francisco Bay.
It’s also possible that Allie has slipped through the Golden Gate and headed out to the Pacific Ocean.
The humpback, a species that rarely shows up in San Francisco Bay, showed signs of distress after it arrived in the waters off the former Alameda Naval Air Station.
The baleen whale lacked a sheen and appeared underweight.
The humpback was initially spotted around May 27 in what’s known as the Seaplane Lagoon, a place where U.S. Navy amphibious aircraft once taxied in and out of the water. It’s currently a site for a future ferry terminal.
Allie then moved closer to where the USS Hornet Sea, Air & Space Museum is docked, which along with some maritime ships, is near the lagoon.
On Saturday, the marine mammal center got reports that the whale seemed to have vanished, Keener said. Then that evening the center got video footage of a humpback about four miles due west near the San Francisco waterfront, he said.
“It’s highly likely that it’s the same whale,” Keener said.
Allie has not been seen since, he said.
The spring season, which finds hundreds of whales traveling along the West Coast from Mexico to Alaska for feeding, has been harrowing for many marine species, leading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare a wildlife emergency for gray whales.
The marine mammal center will host a presentation 6 p.m.-7 p.m. Wednesday at the LinkedIn Café in San Francisco on why whales are dying as they migrate this season. Space is limited. People can RSVP at https://bit.ly/2WtRNVZ.
Anyone who sees other distressed animals in the area, or humans harassing the whale, should call the Marine Mammal Center’s 24-hour hotline at 415-289-SEAL (7325).
