A white whale has been spotted off the coast of Australia, leading many to wonder if it is the famous albino humpback Migaloo.
The pale whale was seen swimming north along the Queensland coast, near the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef, by a tourist.
“This video footage was received by the White Whale Research Center on Friday 16th June from a tourist flying over the Great Barrier Reef in the Whitsunday Islands area. It shows a possible sighting of a white whale heading north. Could it be #Migaloo ?” tweeted the Migaloo the Whale Twitter account, run by The White Whale Research Centre.
Migaloo is an all-white humpback first spotted in 1991 off Byron Bay, Australia. He is the only confirmed genetically albino humpback whale in the world, and was named Migaloo by a local aboriginal collective in Hervey Bay, which means “white fella.”
Albinism is a genetic condition that causes melanin—the pigment that causes skin and hair to have color—to not develop. It can occur in a range of animals, from humans and whales to snakes and anteaters—albino creatures appear with white skin and hair, feathers, or fur, as well as pink-hued eyes. Albinism is rare in humpback whales, affecting only 1 in 10,000 individuals.
Vanessa Pirotta, a whale expert with the Marine Predator Research Group at Macquarie University, said that she isn’t sure if the footage really shows Migaloo, and might be of another white whale.
“It does not provide us with the amount of information we would require to identify Migaloo,” Pirotta told Australian news media 9News.
“It does show what appears to be a white whale swimming, which is positive,” she said. “It could be him or possibly another white-ish whale as part of this east Australian humpback whale population.”
“There was another white whale sighting a few days before but we were unable to confirm this through the images provided. White humpback whales are not common.”
Migaloo hasn’t been seen in several years, with his last confirmed sighting having been in 2020, off the coast of Port Macquarie. This has led many to fear that he may have died, although he may have just been taking different migration routes than usual.
“It’s not that unusual when monitoring the returning humpback whales that visit the southwest of Ireland, to find that regular returnees simply aren’t recorded every year,” Pádraig Whooley, Sightings Officer at the Irish Whale & Dolphin Group, previously told Newsweek.
“Of course Migaloo is so detectable that this seems a little less likely, but he may have delayed his migration to the breeding area, or perhaps he has just not been seen yet.”
There are several other white-colored whales in the ocean, many of whom are mistaken for Migaloo. Last summer, a white humpback whale washed up dead in Australia and was feared to be the famous whale before it was confirmed to be a different individual. Some white calves have also been spotted, including one spotted swimming off the coast of Costa Rica last summer.
Whether this sighting is of Migaloo or not, the great white whale is under threat. Due to his celebrity status, he is often at risk for collision with tourist boats attempting to get a good look at him: in 2003, he was even hit by one such boat, leaving him with multiple scars on his back.
Humpbacks, in general, also face several threats from entanglement in fishing gear to plastic and chemical pollution and predation.
For his protection, Migaloo is a “special management marine mammal”, meaning that any boat cannot come within around 1,600 feet of him.
On Twitter, Pirotta urged anyone who thinks that they have spotted Migaloo to contact the White Whale Research Centre.
“Is that you, #Migaloo? Tourist (Francesca Emm) captures video of familiar-looking #whale over #GreatBarrierReef,” she tweeted. “Report Migaloo sightings to
@Migaloo1.”
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