IT’S A WINTER WONDERLAND AS MIGALOO PUTS ON SHOW
IT’S a white winter on the Coast, with Migaloo back in our waters.
Twelve lucky whale watchers including Byron Bay photographer Sean O’Shea and Mark Franklin from the Oceania Project caught a glimpse of Australia’s most famous whale making a splash off Cape Byron yesterday.
“It was absolutely gorgeous, unbelievable,” Mr Franklin said. “He was travelling with three smaller whales, and they were taking turns travelling with him. One young whale would come up and breach around him, then swim away and another would come in.
“He was quite close to the surface the whole time, like a submarine. He’s undeniable.”
Mr Franklin’s parents, marine scientists Dr Wally and Dr Trish Franklin, said Migaloo was running late on his migration north compared to previous years.
“He’s a little late,” Wally said. “Males are great wanderers, the immediate destination is the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef, but he’s been known to travel as far north as Cairns and Port Douglas.
“Being a white whale, he attracts a lot of attention – we’ll see him come back through here well into August.”
Migaloo’s sighting comes as a 10m humpback whale was freed from rope and floats yesterday. The whale was suspected to have become entangled in southern NSW or even Victoria.
“It was very distressed, and moving very, very fast,” Dr Franklin said. “At times we found it difficult to keep up with the whale – at no time did it stop.”
The rope was tangled around its body, and though they managed to remove most of it, a small portion remained.
“Only on one pectoral fin – hopefully it will be able to free itself from that.
“If we weren’t able to free this whale from all of this, it would have ultimately killed it.
“They take a long time, there was other superficial damage on the dorsal fin where it was nearly cut through, there’s ropes obviously been there before. But if we don’t get to these situations, the animals will ultimately die.”