Sherol Mershon runs the Silver Fin Bed and Breakfast, on the shore of Lake Aleknagik. She’s hung fishing nets for 45 years and has seen her fair share of wildlife. So when her guests told her they saw whales in the lake, she had her doubts.

In an unusual event, a pair of beluga whales swam about 60 miles up the Kuskokwim River to Bethel. After word got out, boaters pursued the belugas and took at least one of them. Now, an official is working to collect samples of the animal to better understand where it came from.

It would be an obscure sighting of the species. The closest beluga population, which lives at least 1,400 miles away in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, is endangered and covered under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Citizen scientists fill an important gap in helping understand when and how Cook Inlet belugas use the river.

A beluga whale was spotted Friday off San Diego -- the farthest south the species has been documented on the West Coast, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed.

Cook Inlet Keeper and the Center for Biological Diversity have sued the Federal Government over issuing permits to Hilcorp .

An off-course beluga whale was spotted splashing around near London, and Brits can’t quite believe it.

Cook Inlet beluga whales are swimming up the Kenai River earlier in the year and in greater numbers than previously estimated, according to new monitoring of the endangered species.

After attacks belugas scattered northward, away from a traditional calving area. Scattering could impact the survival rate of young belugas.

Spirit camp participants and residents along the Yukon River were shocked to see a lone beluga whale on the Yukon River in early August.