White Killer Whale Spotted in Alaska
Grab your cameras - quick!
It's happened to every traveler I know - at least once. The perfect Kodak moment - and you can't find your camera. Last month the almost mythical White Killer Whale surprised marine biologists sailing along Alaska's Aleutian Islands - and sent them scrambling below decks for their cameras.
AP Photo/Holly Fearnbach"I had heard about this whale, but we had never been able to find it," said Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle. "It was quite neat to find it."
Scientist sailing the Oscar Dyson, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship, saw several pods of whales over a 2-week period. The white whale was traveling in a family group of 12 when it was spotted 2 miles off Kanaga Volcano on February 23. The ship followed the whale for ½ hour.
"Everybody actually came out and was taking pictures," Fearnbach said. "It was a neat sighting for everybody."
White whales have only been spotted in the area twice before - in 1993 and 2001. Alaskan researchers have documented thousands of sightings of black and white killer whales, but this kind of sighting is like finding that elusive needle in a haystack.
What's the most amazing thing you've photographed while traveling? What's the most amazing thing you've missed photographing?
