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George and Gracie, features at the Cetacean Insitute

George and Gracie were a pair of Humpback whales that wandered into San Francisco Bay as calves, and were brought to the Cetacean Institute in Sausalito. By 1986, they had become fully grown, each weighing 45,000 pounds. However, that year it was decided that they had to be released back into the wild because the Institute no longer had the money to feed them their two-ton requirement of shrimp per day.

George and Gracie came to the attention and interest of Admiral Kirk who had travelled back in time to 1986 in search for such a pair. Upon visiting the Institute, Kirk and Spock determined that they were ideal specimens for their mission. Spock would proceed to mind meld with the whales to communicate their intentions to taking them back to the 23rd century. He would, in turn, learn that the whales were unhappy with the way their species have been treated by man. He would also learn that Gracie was pregnant.

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George and Gracie aboard the "HMS Bounty"

The following day, the whales were flown in a special 747 to the Bering Sea, off of Alaska, where they were released. The radio frequency of their tracking tags was 401 megahertz.

With the assistance of Dr. Gillian Taylor, Kirk and party were able to located the whales after they were released; although they were targeted by whalers, the crew was able to beam them into a specially designed tank aboard their commandeered Klingon vessel.

After returning with Kirk to the 23rd century, George and Gracie were released into San Francisco Bay and were last seen heading to open water. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

They were named after mid-20th century American comedy-duo George Burns and Gracie Allen.
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