Moment Captured

Allie, the humpback whale, breaches with SF in the background (Susie Kelly photo)

In a photo reminiscent of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home a humpback whale breaches in San Francisco Bay.

Humpbacks have long pectoral fins and distinctive knobby heads and can grow to 52 feet long and weigh almost 80,000 pounds. The species, known for its acrobatic breaching, makes its north-south migration about this time every year, but unlike grays, which make a beeline to the arctic, a lot of them feed along the coast off San Francisco.

Humpbacks were first seen entering San Francisco Bay in significant numbers during the spring and summer of 2016. Since then, [Bill Keener of the Marine Mammal Center] said, 70 humpbacks have been identified feeding in the bay and many more congregate between April and November outside the Golden Gate, in Monterey and Bodega bays and around the Farallon Islands. This is the first one he has seen that isn’t healthy.

"Allie's" mottled skin shows that she's in poor health. Most humpbacks not only are in good condition, but their numbers are growing.

That's a hopeful sign that Star Trek's 23rd-century whale-extinct universe will stay fictional.