‘Amazing’: Chance of Migaloo return as whales jostle off Sydney coast
By Ben Cubby
It’s a whale of a whale-watching season off Sydney, with humpbacks in their hundreds seen off the coast in the last few days.
The marine mammals migrate north from Antarctic waters each year to breed and calve in the warmer South Pacific, but their abundance this year has struck researchers as unusual.
The ones that got away: Whales glide close to the rocks near Kurnell as a rock fisher looks on.Credit: Rachelle Mackintosh/Cronulla Whale Watching
“There does seem to be a higher number of whales being observed, earlier in the season,” said Vanessa Pirotta, a wildlife scientist and whale expert at Macquarie University.
“What’s driving it? We can’t be 100 per cent sure. The population is recovering. The krill abundance down in Antarctica is unknown, but potentially there are favourable conditions this year,” she said.
“On the other hand, El Nino could be a factor, in that there are more people out and about, boating conditions are good, so there are more people in place and more people seeing more whales. It’s hard to say.”
Sydney wildlife photographer Rachelle Mackintosh said there were more whales in this year’s migration than she had seen before.
A whale’s tail near the northern beaches on Saturday.Credit: Rachelle Mackintosh / Whale Watching Sydney
“People are speculating that there are warmer currents near the coast at the moment and that’s bringing in larger numbers of whales,” she said.
“The peak in numbers will be between now and the end of June. There aren’t that many juveniles ... I’ve seen large numbers of adult males swimming across or on top of each other, jostling each other. It’s an amazing sight.”
Comparing whale populations year-on-year with precision is difficult because of a lack of funding for research, Pirotta said. While citizen scientists work hard to plug the gaps, they are often short of resources.
A glimpse of Migaloo? A white whale was spotted from a plane near the Whitsunday Islands last week.Credit: Twitter
Meanwhile, a white whale sighted off the Queensland coast this week may be the legendary Migaloo, an albino humpback whale that was thought missing, and possibly dead, since 2020.
Migaloo became the leading celebrity in the whale world after it was first sighted in 1991.
Its speedy annual migrations up and down the east coast of Australia - Migaloo averages over 125 kilometres a day, a fair clip for a Humpback in open water - have become a highlight for scientists and whale watchers.
Migaloo has been declared dead twice, but in each instance it has been a case of mistaken identity.
Footage taken from a tourist aircraft flying near the Whitsunday Islands last week showed a white humpback swimming at the surface.
Pirotta said white whales are extremely rare - only a handful of individuals have been identified worldwide - but it has not yet been confirmed whether last week’s sighting was Migaloo or another whale.
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