Sydney — Australia’s northern tropical rivers are renowned for being crocodile-infested, so the appearance of migrating humpback whales in one waterway has baffled marine scientists, who assume they simply took a wrong turn and got stuck.

Marine ecologist Jason Fowler discovered three whales on a fishing trip with friends two weeks ago. He and five friends were sailing in the East Alligator River, about 26km inland in Kakadu National Park in the country’s remote north, when he saw a plume of water from the muddy river...

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