{"id":213409,"date":"2025-10-14T22:57:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T22:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/213409\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T22:57:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T22:57:12","slug":"hopes-white-whale-spotted-off-new-zealand-coast-could-be-elusive-migaloo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/213409\/","title":{"rendered":"Hopes white whale spotted off New Zealand coast could be elusive Migaloo"},"content":{"rendered":"

An albino humpback whale<\/a> has been caught on camera off the coast of New Zealand<\/a>, sparking hopes it may be the elusive Migaloo.<\/p>\n

Georgia Phelps and her friends captured video of the rare whale off Kaik\u014dura’s coastline.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t know how rare it was at the time,” Phelps told 9News.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/An albino whale is seen off the coast of New Zealand. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

“(The whales) were in no rush to do anything, they were just kind of cruising along.<\/p>\n

“You just saw its back come up for a few seconds, I was trying to get the pictures, and then it would disappear again.<\/p>\n

“It was really far out, but it was so exciting to see.”\ufeff<\/p>\n

Migaloo, the famed albino whale, has not been seen for five years\ufeff, since it last surfaced off the coast of Port Macquarie in NSW in June 2020.<\/p>\n

It was first spotted in Byron Bay in 1991, and has delighted whale watchers for years, spotted as far away as Cape Schanck in Victoria and the Whitsundays in north Queensland.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Migaloo is seen off the coast of Byron Bay. (Getty)<\/p>\n

Anthony Ardern from Sea World Cruises told 9News the sighting was “very promising”.<\/p>\n

“It’s obviously an extremely white whale, which is what we’re looking for,”\ufeff Ardern said.<\/p>\n

“\ufeffThere are a few little features that we can see that do look quite promising, but without seeing the complete whale we just don’t know.”<\/p>\n

Experts are encouraging anyone in New Zealand to keep a lookout and document any encounters they have with whales.\ufeff<\/p>\n

“If we had some close-up photos, especially some photos of its fluke (tail) when it rounds out to dive, that’s how we can truly tell whether it’s Migaloo or not.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An albino humpback whale has been caught on camera off the coast of New Zealand, sparking hopes it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-213409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}