Photo/Illutration A whale spouting water is seen near the mouth of the Yodogawa river in Osaka at 4:50 p.m. on Jan. 10. (Satoru Ogawa)

OSAKA--An 8-meter-long whale has remained in Osaka Bay near the mouth of the Yodogawa river, more than 30 hours after it was first reported there.

The whale has been nicknamed “Yodo-chan” on social media. Many are concerned for its safety.

The Osaka Coast Guard Office said the whale was barely moving and occasionally spouting water. It swam 100 meters southwest from the river mouth around 10 a.m. on Jan. 10 and then stayed in the same area until around 5 p.m., when officials stopped monitoring it.

The whale “won’t affect vessels’ navigation,” they said, adding they will monitor the whale on Jan. 11 at sunrise and sunset.

The officials received reports of the whale near the mouth of the river around 8 a.m. on Jan. 9 and spotted the whale about 350 meters south of the Nakajima parking area on the Hanshin Expressway Bayshore Route that runs along Osaka Bay.

The water there is 2 to 3 meters deep.

Yasunobu Nabeshima, 69, a visiting researcher at the Osaka Museum of Natural History who is familiar with the ecosystem of Osaka Bay, said the creature appears to be a sperm whale based on its nose and position of its dorsal fin.

Sperm whales live from the Arctic to Antarctica. An adult male sperm whale can reach around 16 meters in length. They dive down more than 200 meters and feed mainly on giant squid.

Nabeshima speculates the whale wandered into the shallow waters of Osaka Bay because “it lost its swimming ability for some reason and was being carried on the currents.”

In 2009, a sperm whale entered Uchinoura Bay in Wakayama Prefecture and returned to the Pacific Ocean on its own 20 days later.

Nabeshima said whales can survive for around a month without food thanks to the fat stored in their bodies.

“For now, we should wait and see how the situation develops,” he said.

(This article was written by Shigeko Matsuo and Rikako Takai.)

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