Beluga Whale in the Thames

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_the_Whale

This time, he was successfully guided back to the Pacific Ocean using a combination of "oikomi" simultaneously with the broadcast of attractive sounds of humpback whales preparing to feed from a boat headed towards the open ocean. Researchers Louis Herman and Bernie Krause led a team of scientists who used sound recordings of natural whale feeding vocalizations to guide Humphrey back to safety. These sounds were produced for a swimming trajectory of 50 miles (80 km) until Humphrey reached the Pacific Ocean, sometimes attaining speeds of 30 miles per hour (48 km/h).[12]
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MikeG said:
They're not rare at all. They're common. Their conservation status is rated by the IUCN as "of least concern". They are the most common whale species in captivity, too.

They are of course rare in our waters as they are an arctic whale, but the Thames is more than "brackish" at Gravesend where this animal is most commonly seen, it is very much a saline estuary. At that point, the river is almost a kilometre wide, so anyone thinking this whale is swimming about in a stream has got the wrong mental picture. The Thames is tidal and brackish up past the Pool of London and the Houses of Parliament as far as Teddinton Lock (it used to be tidal as far upstream as Staines, before the lock was installed). Other cetaceans have been seen as far upstream as the Pool of London (HMS Belfast). Teddington Lock is in West London between Richmond/ Twickenham and Kingston upon Thames.

This is what the Thames looks like from Gravesend. The whale has plenty of room to turn around and head in the other direction if that's what it decides to do.
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This.

I hear the whale turned around and headed for Kent when it heard the price of a pint of beer in central London.
 
If they had a naming contest for the whale in England, the results would be:

1. Whitey McWhiteyface
2. Whalesie McWhalesieface
3. Beluga leucasi
 
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