It was an unusually calm day in Cook Inlet, Alaska, on September 30, 2017, when Carrie Goertz got a call that made her heart sink: a baby beluga whale was stranded on a nearby mudflat. Noah Meisenheimer, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officer, had spotted the calf from a helicopter. At first, he thought it was already dead. The body was in just a few inches of water, getting tossed around by the surf. But then, Meisenheimer saw the calf move. Immediately the helicopter touched down. Meisenheimer tried…
