A young gray whale has been spotted off the coast of Italy.
What is behind this is a mystery.
The giant animals actually live in the East Pacific and West Pacific waters.
Experts are baffled.
Fumiocio - A gray whale off the coast of Italy is causing a stir.
The approximately 15-meter-long animal appeared off the coast of Naples - literally.
In the Mediterranean, the gray whale was considered extinct.
Experts estimate that the whale is around a year old.
The days before he had swum around the Gulf of Naples near Sorrento and near the island of Ponza.
The coast guard urges the Italians to leave the whale alone.
Animal rights activists also appealed to leave the animal alone and to stay away.
The fear that people might even think of swimming with the whale is great.
Gray whale in the Mediterranean - not seen for years
The Italian newspaper
La Repubblica
affectionately called the gray whale “Wally”. Gray whales are extremely rare in the Mediterranean. They actually live in other regions of the world, in the East Pacific and West Pacific waters. In the Mediterranean, the marine mammals were considered to be extinct.
Several experts suspect that the melting of the polar ice caps in the Arctic will open up new routes into the Atlantic for gray whales.
The marine mammals in this ocean were actually considered to be extinct.
"Gray whales are coastal whales and sometimes invade large lagoons," wrote whale protectors from the Marevivo organization.
So you could also explore the path in the Mediterranean.
“He's probably malnourished because our ecosystem doesn't have enough resources.
But it is strong enough to move around in search of food, ”wrote the association.
Gray whale in the Mediterranean puzzles researchers
However, the rare visit puzzles researchers. The young must have been born in the Atlantic, suspects Maddalena Jahoda from the research and protection institute for marine mammals Thetis in Milan. "In view of his age, I think it is unlikely that Wally has covered the 20,000-kilometer route from Mexico across the Arctic to Italy - he simply didn't have the time to do this," the whale expert told the portal
standard.at.
That would mean that a population of gray whales has developed again in the Atlantic. That would be sensational news for whale researchers and animal rights activists - but so far the return of the gray whales to the Atlantic has not yet been scientifically proven.
#GuardiaCostiera #Fiumicino avvista giovane esemplare di balena grigia.
The event è stato segnalato con l'app gratuita della Guardia Costiera #PlasticFreeGC, con cui è possibile comunicare la presenza di grandi vertebrati marini in tempo realle.
#TutelaAmbiente pic.twitter.com/iLXhDmHOPy
- Guardia Costiera (@guardiacostiera) April 22, 2021
Various species of whales and dolphins cavort in the Mediterranean.
The fin whale, for example, swims in the Mediterranean off the coasts of France, Sardinia and mainland Italy.
Shocking find - whale carcasses discovered off the coast of southern Italy
Italian Coast Guard divers discovered a giant whale carcass off the coast of Sorrento in January 2021.
The team dragged the lifeless whale body, over 20 meters long, into the port of Naples.
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List of rubric lists: © Guardia Costiera / dpa
