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, the manager of 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.”
The 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”.
“I’ve never heard of an Antarctic minke whale here,” she said. “It’s a species that we don’t generally see off Sydney, regardless of time of the year.”
While the species was known to have a range from Antarctica to the north of Queensland, she said it was primarily observed in the icy waters of the Antarctic.
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She said that at this time of year, Antarctic minkes would “probably” be in Antarctic waters.
What brought the whale into Sydney’s shallows was not clear and she encouraged members of the public to share sightings of unusual marine species with NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to aid scientists.
“It may be a case of mis-navigation, it may be a case that it just happened to be in the area,” she said.
“The good thing is it looks in good condition, and it was observed going out to [sea], which is a good thing. If we’ll see it again, I’m not sure.”
