page_title: River Thames whale
section_title: Reasons for entry
hierarchical_section_title: River Thames whale / Reasons for entry
caption_attribution_description: Crowds watching the whale in the Thames Shermozle 14:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
context_page_description: The River Thames whale, affectionately nicknamed Willy by Londoners, was a juvenile female northern bottlenose whale which was discovered swimming in the River Thames in central London on Friday 20 January 2006. According to the BBC, she was five metres long and weighed about twelve tonnes. The whale appeared to have been lost, as her normal habitat would have been around the coasts of the far north of Scotland and Northern Ireland, and in the seas around the Arctic Ocean. It was the first time the species had been seen in the Thames since records began in 1913. She died from convulsions as she was being rescued shortly after 19:00 GMT on 21 January 2006.
context_section_description: The reasons for the whale's presence in the Thames were unclear. A number of possible causes were raised prior to the post-mortem:
  Illness: some previous whale strandings are believed to have been caused by physical ill-health, resulting from factors such as parasite infections or pollution, which can disorient whales and cause them to strand themselves in shallow water.
  Noise pollution: there have been a number of incidents in which military sonar systems have caused hearing damage to marine mammals. It was suggested that Royal Navy sonar testing may have been a factor; however, the post-mortem revealed no damage to the whale's auditory functions.
  A food hunt: it was suggested that the whale may have been chasing a shoal of fish up the Thames. However, the principal food source for the northern bottlenose whale is squid, not fish.
  A navigational error: according to the scientists who conducted the post-mortem, the most likely explanation for the incident was simply that the whale was seeking to return to its normal feeding grounds in the North Atlantic and took a wrong turn, mistakenly swimming west up the Thames rather than taking the longer route around the coast.
caption: Crowds watching the rescue operation
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