As a kid, I went on a beluga-watching trip with my family one summer. There were fewer than usual that day, perhaps because of the cold June temperature, maybe for another reason, but we still got a few, and I came back with a poster that I got laminated and that hung above my bed in my room for the better part of a decade, at first surrounded by Batman and Joker stuff, then band posters, then Samantha Fox and band posters.
I'm lucky enough to live in Montréal, where the St. Lawrence River (Fleuve St-Laurent) leads all the way to the ocean to the East, so without crossing borders or needing passports, I can live with all the advantages of a large city and escape to the Coast for the wildlife and salted water, lobster and everything else that makes the ocean side what it is.
Once in a while, a beluga will make its way all the way here, despite being some 400 miles from a salt water source; when it's a female of the species, since they are endangered (I was shocked to learn last year that the once-healthy population has been decimated to perhaps less than a thousand in total, and most of them now look like they have cancer), they usually accompany it back to its natural habitat, but apparently, for males, they leave them be, possibly to die in the more-polluted City water.
It seems we had one here a few weeks ago. There were sightings for a week or so, then none. It's assumed it's dead.
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