Sightings of more rare marine visitors in the north

A whale frolicks in Pukenui waters.

Last week's discovery of two rare pygmy right whales on the Beach at Taupo Bay wasn't the only unusual marine mammal sighting in the Far North over recent days.

A few days earlier members of the Houhora Big Game and Sports Fishing Club at Pukenui were treated to the spectacle of a white humpback breaching off Mt Camel.

It was thought to be an individual known as Migaloo, which had been seen earlier in the Bay of Plenty and was likely to be on its way to the Queensland coast. Migaloo is so unusual that it has its own Instagram feed and a Facebook page with more than 16,000 likes.

The two whales found dead on the beach at Taupo Bay were of one of the rarest species of all.

DOC marine ranger Cat Peters, from Russell, said pygmy right whales were "super rare". They had only been seen at sea 30 times.

They were mostly found in Antarctic waters — Taupo Bay was near the northern limit of their range — and they were a pelagic (open sea), migratory species.

"Beyond that there's little we know," she said.

Their cause of death was not known, and they had no obvious signs of trauma. The adult's baleen [bone] was broken, but that could have happened when it washed ashore. Both had circular bite marks left by cookie-cutter sharks, but those would not have been lethal.