ISRAEL – A sighting in the Mediterranean has stunned scientists!
A gray whale has been sighted outside the Pacific Ocean for the first time in about 300 years. The amazing spectacle has left scientists stunned. Prominent cetacean researcher Robert Brownell has labeled the discovery “the most amazing sighting in the history of whales.”
The gray whale was spotted in the Mediterranean off of Israel. Gray whales once inhabited the North Atlantic but they vanished in the 17th or 18th centuries, most likely due to over-hunting. The last few remaining colonies live in the western and eastern regions of the North Pacific. Scientists have long considered the species to be extinct in the Atlantic for years.
“It’s an unbelievable event which has been described as one of the most important whale sighting ever,” said Aviad Scheinin, chairman of the Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center. The whale was estimated to be about 40 feet long and weighs approximately 200 tons.
“This is sensational,” Phillip Clapham of the U.S. National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle told New Scientist. “The most plausible explanation is that it came across an ice-free North-West Passage from the Pacific Ocean, and is now wondering where the hell it is.”
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Is this Moby Dick?