MEANWHILE, DIEHARDS CLING TO J.J. SEARCH.Byline: Brooke Olson Daily News Staff Writer Sea World has given up. The Coast Guard has all but given up. The marine biologists marine biologist specialist in the biology of marine life. have given up. The orphaned gray whale, J.J., has fallen off nearly everyone's radar since she ditched her tracking transmitters within a week of her March release. Nearly everyone, that is, except a small legion of whale watchers sailing up and down the California coast looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. the mischievous whale. ``We keep a close eye out for her - we have pictures up in the boats and we would assume J.J. would be a very friendly whale,'' said Don Hedden, better known as Captain Don. ``If we ever saw her, we'd shut down the boat and see if she'd come over to us.'' Captain Don runs daily excursions to the Channel Islands from Santa Barbara's Stearns Wharf Stearns Wharf is a pier in the harbor at Santa Barbara, California. When completed In 1872, it became the longest deep-water pier between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Named for its builder, local lumberman John P. in search of J.J. and other whales. J.J. gained fame when she became stranded about 1-1/2 years ago near Venice Beach but was rescued and nursed back to health at Sea World. In March, she was released into the Pacific Ocean off San Diego Bay Noun 1. San Diego Bay - a bay of the Pacific in southern California San Diego - a picturesque city of southern California on San Diego Bay near the Mexican border; site of an important naval base Pacific, Pacific Ocean - the largest ocean in the world . At one point, J.J. grabbed daily headlines and potential sightings
Sightings was a paranormal-themed television program that was first broadcast as an hour special entitled "UFO Report: Sightings" in October 1991. were posted on a J.J. Web site on the Internet. J.J.'s site hasn't been updated since April 3 and Sea World officials are at a loss to recall when they last heard news of the whale they miraculously nursed back to health last year. ``I get e-mail, I get phone calls, I get letters just about every day,'' said Keith Yip, Sea World's general curator who oversaw J.J.'s recovery. ``But I really have no idea where she is - none of the sightings have ever been confirmed and it's a big, big ocean out there,'' he said. That's not stopping people like George and Veronica Erter, who are spending their summer aboard different whale watching Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and other cetaceans in their natural habitat. Whales are watched most commonly for recreation (cf. bird watching) but the activity can also be for scientific or educational reasons. vessels along the Pacific Coast. ``It's a needle in a haystack For the epidode of the TV series House, see . A needle in a haystack is an English idiom that refers to an object (or a person) that is difficult to find because it is lost, mixed in, or buried within a much larger space, mass, crowd, or group of some other objects. - that's for sure,'' said Veronica. ``We love looking at all the marine mammals marine mammals mammals inhabiting the sea; generally taken to include the cetaceans (whales, porpoise, dolphin), the sirenians (sea-cows, including manatees and dugong) and the pinnipeds (the carnivores of the group, seals, sealions, walruses). and think that we may just get a glimpse of J.J.'' The Erters, both high school teachers in Salem, Ore., share the passion for J.J. ``My wife and I have this intense fascination with the whale,'' George Erter said. Sightings of mammoth blue whales have been a nice diversion for the Erters, but for them, J.J. is the primary focus of the search. ``You never know,'' George Erter said, with a smile. ``It may just happen.'' CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO Stacy DiRocco gets ready to feed J.J. the gray whale in this January 1998 photo. Tina Gerson/Daily News |
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