PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - Marine experts are excited at what they think is a pygmy right whale - a very rare visitor to Plettenberg Bay shores - on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

"They are extremely rare, but have been recorded in Plett before, decades ago," said Dr Gwenneth Penry, marine mammal scientist at Nelson Mandela University.

Melissa Nel of Sharkspotters was conducting observations when she noticed a shadow - larger than a seal - moving through the water at the Gap on Robberg.

"I managed to get some semi-decent footage," said Nel. It passed so quickly that at first, "we weren't sure what we had just seen".

"I immediately sent the video to marine mammal experts for confirmation, and it turned out to be a rare sighting. 

"What made it even more interesting was that the whale was being mobbed - a behaviour where other marine animals harass a larger predator or unfamiliar species.

"We regularly observe this kind of interaction between Cape fur seals and white sharks along the Robberg Peninsula during winter, so seeing it happen with a whale was fascinating," added Nel.

Penry said it was safest to say that it was "probably" a pygmy right whale, as they aren't 100% sure.

She said the size, behaviour and features made it the most likely candidate, and they have been able to rule out other possible species.

In a paper by Ross et al. (1975) it was suggested that there may be an inshore movement of pygmy right whale juveniles in spring and summer along the Southern African coast, which may constitute part of a post-weaning dispersal phase.

Another paper by Sekiguchi et al. (1992), proposed that this movement may coincide with an increased abundance nearshore of the prey of the pygmy right whale during the summer upwelling period.

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