{"id":17439,"date":"2025-07-24T02:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T02:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/17439\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T02:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T02:09:08","slug":"humpbacks-spotted-in-yarra-river-near-west-gate-freeway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/17439\/","title":{"rendered":"Humpbacks spotted in Yarra River near West Gate freeway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under Melbourne\u2019s busiest freeway, a couple of commuters took the scenic route into the city \u2013 two humpback whales, moseying under the West Gate Bridge for the first time in living memory.<\/p>\n

The duo was spotted on Tuesday on Ports Victoria\u2019s traffic cameras that monitor the Yarra River, the grainy stills showing the whales\u2019 breaching fins, just enough to make drivers do a double take.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The humpback whale pair was spotted under the West Gate Bridge.<\/p>\n

It is not uncommon for whales to frolic at the top end of Port Phillip Bay, near Williamstown and Port Melbourne, and even at the mouth of the Yarra River, Dolphin Research Institute research officer David Donnelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut to get up to the bridge is not something we\u2019ve got a record of previously,\u201d Donnelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur records are well-kept for the last 10 years but sporadically date back to [1984]. We have quite a long history of visits of those animals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whale visits to Port Phillip Bay vary from year to year. Hardly any of the animals appeared in the bay in 2024, compared with multiple visits a few years ago and again this year, Donnelly said.<\/p>\n

The whales spotted under the West Gate first entered the bay over the weekend, the research officer said. On Monday, the pair were in Melbourne\u2019s south-east, spotted playing in the waters off Parkdale beach on their way to Mentone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019ve been having them coming up and down the eastern seaboard, but they\u2019ve also been in Corio Bay, and down through to Point Cook,\u201d Donnelly said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under Melbourne\u2019s busiest freeway, a couple of commuters took the scenic route into the city \u2013 two humpback…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-17439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}