RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 16, 2007 (AFP) - Environmentalists have lost track of a five-meter (27-foot) Minke whale that they had freed from a mudflat where it got stuck in the Amazon jungle's Tapajos River, 900 kilometers (560 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean.

Brazil's Environment and Renewable Natural Resources Institute (Ibama) said Friday it has called off the search for the whale, which they said swam up the Tapajos after entering the Amazon River at Marajo Island.

LOS ANGELES, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - Five members of an Indian tribe that lives in the northwestern state of Washington were charged Thursday with killing a gray whale, a protected specie.

The five members of the Makah Indian tribe struck the whale with at least four harpoons, attached buoys to the creature to stop it from escaping and shot it at least 16 times on September 8, the US attorney's office said in a statement.

The charges could result in up to a year in jail and a 100,000 fine for the defendants.

Gray whales are protected under federal law.

BREST, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - A 19-metre (62-foot) whale was found dead on a beach in northwest France on Wednesday, police said.

'It was a fin whale that died recently,' said Jean-Yves Le Clech, a marine expert from the nearby town of Brest. 'When there are storms, the currents can easily push the bodies onto the coast.'

Scientists will take samples from the whale on Thursday to determine the cause of death before its body is taken from the beach and disposed of.

WARSAW, Aug 13, 2007 (AFP) - A whale has been spotted off the Polish coast after apparently losing its way, in a rare appearance of such a marine mammal in the Baltic Sea, an expert said Monday.

'If my observations prove right, it is a Minke whale which can reach up to 10 metres (33 feet) in length,' oceanographer Krzysztof Skora told AFP, who sighted the animal in the Gulf of Gdansk, near the port city of the same name.

'But it's 100 percent sure that it's a whale and probably the same whale which was seen off Sweden a month ago.'

NICE, July 22, 2007 (AFP) - Authorities in Monaco trying to save a starving baby whale spotted off the coast there last week have lost track of the animal, maritime officials said Sunday.

The whale, which is separated from its mother and cannot feed itself, was last seen on Saturday morning, Mike Riddel of the International Maritime Reserve for Marine Mammals in the Western Mediterranean (Rimmo) told AFP.