Animals: Portland’s Ethelbert

One morning three weeks ago, milk wagon drivers and early risers in Portland, Ore. saw a huge dark marine shape diving about in Columbia Slough, adjacent to the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. “Sportsmen” started shooting at it until Governor Julius L. Meier issued orders against it. By the end of a week the creature had been identified as a small killer whale which had wandered 100 mi. up from the sea. Press & populace named it Ethelbert. The Oregon Humane Society decided Ethelbert would never get back to sea, should be painlessly destroyed by dynamite. Before the dynamiting could take place, last week one Edward O. Lessard and his son Joseph went out in a motorboat, harpooned Ethelbert, then lost him. Others grappled Ethelbert up, put him on display. Portland police arrested the Lessards for disturbing the peace, confiscated Ethelbert’s remains.