A white whale carcass has washed up on a remote beach on Victoria’s far eastern coastline sparking fears it could be the famous albino whale Migaloo. | By Marta Pascual Juanola MartaPascual3
A white whale carcass has washed up on a remote beach on Victoria’s far eastern coastline sparking fears it could be the famous albino whale Migaloo, which hasn’t been spotted in Australian waters for two years.
Dr Vanessa Pirotta, a marine scientist with Macquarie University, said a pod of whales Migaloo had been spotted swimming with in the past had recently been sighted off Port Macquarie. However, she warned it was too early to know for certain whether the stranded whale in Mallacoota was the world-famous albino humpback.
Migaloo, whose name means “white fella” in several Indigenous languages, is believed to have been born in 1986 and was first spotted in 1991 off the coast of Byron Bay. But the last sighting of Migaloo, aged in his mid-30s, off Australia was in June 2020.Pirotta said the best way to identify the whale would be to look at the ridges on its tail and carry out genetic analysis of the carcass and compare it to samples taken from Migaloo.
However, the remoteness of the location of the carcass could pose a challenge for officers and researchers seeking to collect samples or transport the remains.
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