Migaloo, the rare white humpback whale, was spotted on Thursday, June 19 during his annual migration. The whale has fans all over the world, though Australia may have his largest fan base, as he passes the Eastern coast every year to go to his breeding grounds in the Great Barrier Reef.
He is one of a very small number of white humpbacks known to researchers, and was once thought to be the only one in the world.
Thursday marks Migaloo's first spotting of the year, and is a lucky start to the whale-watching season. He was seen off the New South Wales south coast in Eden, Australia, and a video of him playing in the waters was captured on a mobile phone.
White Whale Research Center stated that, "as [Migaloo] migrates up the east coast of Australia from Antarctica to the warmer waters of Tropical North Queensland his distinctive all white coloring allows people to report sightings." The Center maintains logs of all Migaloo sightings, since the first in Byron Bay in 1991. It was started by Oskar Peterson as a way to connect universities, researchers and students in their mutual interest in Migaloo and the sparse, mysterious white whale population.
Peterson was interviewed by ABC News Australia in regards to Thursday's sighting, where he expressed his excitement at the start of the Migaloo action.
"He's been around for quite a while and he cruises up and down the east coast of Australia every year, but some years he goes missing in action so to speak," Peterson told ABC News Australia. "I know from Byron Bay to the Gold Coast, the last week of June to the first week of July is that two-week window where he'll go past."
The whale is hard to miss, Peterson says, due to his lustrous coloring. Under the water he appears "fluorescent blue" and is a spectacular sight.
Researchers thought Migaloo might be the only documented white humpback until September 2011, when an all-white humpback calf, thought to be male as well, was spotted. Dubbed "Migaloo Junior," its relation to Migaloo remains unknown. In May 2012, an all-white killer whale, nicknamed "Iceberg," was spotted off the coast of Russia. Whether or not Migaloo and Migaloo Junior are albinos is yet to be known.
Migaloo is so beloved that he has a Twitter account, a Facebook page and an overwhelming fanbase. The Australian government has a law banning aircraft and boats from entering a zone in which Migaloo is being photographed or recorded. Researchers now believe this superstar humpback to be in his 20s. According to the White Whale Researcher Center, the average age of a humpback whale is 50 years. Hopefully, Migaloo fans have plenty more years to watch the giant beauty parade by the Australian coast.
