Elusive Beluga In Yukon

WHITEHORSE, Yukon - Fort Yukon residents had a tough time this week hunting down a beluga that has traveled 780 miles up the Yukon River.

There have been reports over the past 10 days of a pod of four, as well as a single white beluga, around the Alaskan Gwich'in village, 145 miles from the Yukon-Alaska border at the mouth of the Porcupine River.

A whaling party went out earlier this week in hopes of catching one of the mammals, but spent four hours watching it instead, says resident Susan Peter.

Peter said the whaling party "didn't know how" to kill it.

The chum salmon run was closed to subsistence fishing by wildlife officials earlier this month because of low numbers, so the villagers were hoping to replace the lost food with the whale, Peter

said.