claim: A photograph shows a fresh water sturgeon whale under the Mackinac Bridge in Lake Huron.
origin: A photograph appearedÂ on Facebook in May 2017 purportedly showing a â€œfreshwater sturgeon whaleâ€ beneath the Mackinac Bridge, which stretches betweenÂ the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan across the Straits of Mackinac: < Wow. This is the first sighting of a freshwater sturgeon whale in the Great Lakes in over fifty years. Officially declared extinct in 1982, but not anymore. Very cool. > This image is a hoax.Â Nearly every piece of information in this meme is inaccurate. There is no such animal (extinct or otherwise) calledÂ the â€œNorth American Sturgeon Whale,â€ and we found no record of the existence of the organizations the Mackinac Bridge Drone Authority or the Great Lakes Aquatic Biological System.Â The Straits of Mackinac, where the whale was purportedly photographed, connect Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.Â Whales do not liveÂ in any of theÂ Great Lakes.Â Furthermore, an undoctored version of this photograph (sans whale) is available on the internet: This Facebook post was hardly the first to claim that â€œfreshwater whalesâ€ were living in the Great Lakes. In fact, a â€œGreat Lakes Whale Watchâ€ was held off the coast of Chicago in 1985 in an attempt to locate one of these mammoth marine creatures in Lake Michigan. The search, which was most likely a tongue-in-cheek affair, was unsuccessful.Â