A California gray whale, named "JJ" by its handlers and weighing 19,000 pounds and measuring 31 feet, is hosed down as it rests in a sling on the deck of the U.S. Coast Guard bouy tender Conifer before being released six miles off the San Diego coast March 31. The now one-year-old whale was rescued from a Los Angeles beach at five-days-old and nursed back to health at Hubbs Research Center at Sea World in San Diego.

NEWS WHALE