Two kilometers off the coast of Gadani, Balochistan, fishermen sighted and captured on video a massive blue whale on Monday morning.
Blue whales, the biggest mammals to have ever lived on Earth, are only found in 10,000–25,000 individuals worldwide and are classified as endangered on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Species.
A local fisherman said that on Sunday, at about 4:40 p.m., they spotted the same whale off the shore of Gadani. Unfortunately, they were unable to capture it on video at the moment.
Blue whale sighted off Gadani beach in Pakistan’s Balochistan province
— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) April 8, 2024
The whale was caught on camera by local fishermen pic.twitter.com/cmVsypESxn
Muhammad Moazzam Khan, technical adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P), stated, "It's the second time the live sighting of a blue whale has been recorded on camera in Pakistani waters." The species of whale is the second most common in Pakistani waters, behind Arabian humpback whales.
He asserts that there is a substantial number of blue whales in the Arabian Sea since local fishermen have seen the whales many times in the past 15 years.
Khan mentioned how, in September 2017, a massive mother blue whale and her baby were spotted off Churna Island, which is close to the coast of Karachi.
As per experts, blue whales may be found in every ocean on Earth, with the exception of the Arctic. They mostly swim alone or in pairs; however, they do occasionally form small groups. When winter hits, they frequently migrate great distances towards the Equator, where they spend the summers eating in polar waters.