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Migaloo, the All-White Humpback Whale
From Larry Rivera, Your Guide to Australia / New Zealand for Visitors.
The albino humpback whale named Migaloo regularly travels along the Australian east coast during the whale migration season. According to the Hawaii-based Pacific Whale Foundation, Migaloo is the only known occurrence of an all-white humpback whale, and has been compared to the fictional Moby Dick.
If Japan implements a plan to hunt down humpback whales, there is clear danger ahead for Migaloo along with other humpbacks coming from the Antarctic and migrating northwards to the Great Barrier Reef during the winter season.
The killing of whales
Migaloo's visit to Australia in 2005 coincided with deliberations at the International Whaling Commission meeting in South Korea where Japan was proposing to have a 19-year ban on commercial whaling overturned. Under a loophole in the whaling convention, Japan is allowed to kill whales for scientific research.
Japan wanted to double its intake of minke whales and extend its hunt to include humpbacks.
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 The all-white humpback whale Migaloo, in the company of an ordinary humpback whale, photographed from the air in September 1992, off the coast of Australia. Photo credit: Dr. Paul Forestell, Pacific Whale Foundation.
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Japan proposal fails
The Japanese proposal for commercial whaling as well as its move to increase its culling of minke whales, and to include humpack whales, for the stated reason of research, failed to achieve even a simple majority vote where a two-thirds vote was required.
Unfortunately, the International Whaling Commission has no power to enforce its decisions and it is reported that Japan was prepared to defy the IWC ruling.
'No need to kill whales'
Pacific Whale Foundation, which has been studying humpback whales of the southern hemisphere since 1984, says its scientists are convinced that killing even small numbers of humpback whales in Antarctica could lead to the destruction of some of the genetically unique and discrete whale populations that are only just being identified in the southern hemisphere.
In a statement issued before the International Whaling Commission meeting in South Korea in June 2005, Pacific Whale Foundation said it "has demonstrated over 25 years of pioneering whale research, there is absolutely no need to kill whales in the name of science. And as we've shown in many parts of the world, educational whalewatching adds more to a nation's economy than whale-killing. There simply are no justifications for whaling of any type."
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First Migaloo sighting
Migaloo was first sighted in 1991 and has been seen almost every year since then as the big white whale traveled along the Australian coast during the whale migration season.
Unlike Moby Dick, Migaloo is no killer whale. One time she was reported to have caused destruction was when Migaloo surfaced just in front of a trimaran near Townsville in Queensland in 2003. The boat was lifted and broke its centre keel. The concern was that Migaloo had been injured.
The naming of Migaloo
Dr Paul Forestell of the Pacific Whale Foundation contacted local Aborigines in 1992, the year after the first sighting of the white humpback, and was told albinos were considered to be special beings, "perhaps signs or tokens from the spirit world." The name "Migaloo" was suggested which means "white fellah" in the local Aboriginal language.
The Pacific Whale Foundation says Migaloo is part of a population of humpback whales feeding in Antarctica in the southern summer and autumn and migrating along the east coast of Australia in the winter and spring (June to October) to the warmer waters of the Great Barrier Reef.
Migaloo spotting
It's been a case of "spot Migaloo" every year in Australia since the white whale was first sighted in 1991. Because of the whale's color (or lack of it), Migaloo is easily sighted and tracked by researchers without the use of radio tags.
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