Fact check: Were humpback whales found swimming near Bombay High?

Fact check: Were humpback whales found swimming near Bombay High?

FPJ Web DeskUpdated: Sunday, April 05, 2020, 02:17 PM IST
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Screenshot of the whale |

A video of humpback whales swimming around Bombay High have been circulating on WhatsApp since last evening.

The caption for the video reads, ONGC officials spotted humpback whales at Bombay High. Twitter went crazy after the video was shared

It was natural to see people get excited. Amid the coronavirus outbreak, wildlife has been the most beneficial, with Mumbai too witnessing some stunning visuals of deer grazing at Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

The humpback whale video, although legit, has a number of questions regarding the location. According to a fact checking report by Hindustan Times, ONGC workers are not allowed to carry their mobile phones while travelling into sea.

Secondly, YouTube has the same video that was dated September 2019, which means that this video was not shot during the lockdown. This puts forth another question: were the whales really spotted near the Arabian Sea or another unknown location?

The mystery was solved by BBC Indonesia that had tweeted the same video in August 2019, saying that this route was not the natural path followed by the whales

Humpback Whales have been spotted in the Arabian Sea in the past. The breed known as the Arabian humpback whales, are a small sub population of humpback whales, are considered to be the most isolated whale population on Earth. "A population estimation study suggests that they have remained separate from other humpback whale populations for perhaps 70,000 years, which is extremely unusual in a species famed for long distance migrations," says a report by WWF.

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