HUNTINGTON BEACH

Law enforcement authorities were patrolling the shallow water in Huntington Harbour on Monday after residents there again spotted what they believe to be a young California gray whale near the boat docks.

Officers with the Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol, who confirmed the whale’s presence Sunday, said they were monitoring the waters Monday afternoon but did not see the whale, and it may have moved back into the ocean.

Residents said the whale had been in the harbor for at least a week. Under state law, authorities can assist a whale only if it is in distress or is beached, said a spokeswoman at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego.