‘Very rare’ sighting of juvenile Antarctic minke whale off Sydney coast
‘Very rare’ sighting of juvenile Antarctic minke whale off Sydney coast
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Scientists unsure what prompted juvenile whale to leave icy southern waters for warmer shallows, but ‘it may be a case of mis-navigation’. A young Antarctic minke whale has treated ferry passengers to a rare spectacle after surfacing beside a wharf to the south of Sydney.
Christine Hack, manager of the Cronulla and National Park Ferry Cruises, which manages the Cronulla ferry, said the whale began following the vessel as it approached Bundeena wharf at about 10am on Monday. She said her staff, Jamie and Steve, captured footage of the whale swimming alongside the wharf and the boat, which connects Cronulla with the national park community of Bundeena, across Port Hacking.
The whale followed the ferry into the wharf and then back out again, she said, adding that the sighting was “very rare”. “I’ve been here for 20 years and I’ve never heard of [a whale] being in the Hacking like that,” she said. “We see lots of dolphins, they love to swim along the bow.”.
Wildlife scientist Dr Vanessa Pirotta of Macquarie University said she and other scientists had identified the creature as likely to be a juvenile Antarctic minke and that spotting one in Sydney’s warm waters was “very unusual”. Dwarf minke whales, seen off Sydney during the whale migration season from May to November, were common, she said, but “this sighting is unusual, because not only is it not a dwarf, is an Antarctic minke”.
