By Cassandra Morgan
Rattling trucks and blaring horns choked Melbourne’s busiest freeway as bumper-to-bumper traffic crept slowly towards the city.
But underneath, in a wide stretch of the Yarra River, two humpback whales took the scenic route, moseying under the West Gate Bridge for the first time in living memory.
Vision of the duo, spotted on Ports Victoria’s security cameras on Tuesday, showed the whales’ fins cutting through the water as they surfaced – just enough to make eagle-eyed drivers do a double take.
As traffic rolled overhead, the whales made their way underneath the West Gate, swimming past navigation markers and boats berthed at a marina.
The pair continued up the river, coming close to Coode Island Reserve, before circling back to the bay.
No vessel movements were scheduled at the time of the curious whales’ visit, so there was no need to adjust shipping in the Yarra, a Ports Victoria spokesman said.
The humpback whale pair was spotted under the West Gate Bridge.
It is not uncommon for whales to frolic at the top end of Port Phillip Bay, near Williamstown and Port Melbourne, and even at the mouth of the Yarra River, Dolphin Research Institute research officer David Donnelly said.
“But to get up to the bridge is not something we’ve got a record of previously,” Donnelly said.
“Our records are well-kept for the last 10 years but sporadically date back to [1984]. We have quite a long history of visits of those animals.”
Whale visits to Port Phillip Bay vary from year to year. Very few of the animals appeared in the bay in 2024, compared with multiple visits a few years ago and again this year, Donnelly said.
The whales spotted under the West Gate first entered the bay over the weekend, the research officer said. On Monday, the pair were in Melbourne’s south-east, spotted playing in the waters off Parkdale beach on their way to Mentone.
“So we’ve been having them coming up and down the eastern seaboard, but they’ve also been in Corio Bay, and down through to Point Cook,” Donnelly said.
Donnelly founded Victorian whale sightings citizen science project the Two Bays Whale Project.
The number of whales in the bay each year could vary cyclically, but that was difficult to determine without an adequate number of photos – and particularly, high-quality ones – to identify individual whales and their behaviours, Donnelly said.
“[If this humpback whale pair comes] back to the bay every year, then we could say it’s not unexpected that this animal would come and go,” Donnelly said.
“Reporting the sightings is really important if we want to answer [these] questions.
“We currently hold the largest data set for large whales in Victorian waters, and we’ve just recently written a report to inform decision-making around offshore developments based on that stuff that people have been giving us.”
Melburnians can report whale and dolphin sightings to the Dolphin Research Institute via the PodWatch platform, Donnelly said.
The Conservation Regulator Victoria urges Melburnians to maintain safe distances from whales: 50 metres for swimmers and surfers, 200 metres for boats, 300 metres for jet skis and 500 vertical metres for aircraft, including drones.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece said he’s “never been more jealous of motorists stuck in a West Gate Bridge traffic jam”.
“All jokes aside – what an amazing sight to see in Melbourne,” he said.
“The City of Melbourne doesn’t have the kindest history with whales – they feature on our flag and coat of arms representing our whaling industry heritage. That’s certainly not the case today.”
With Alexander Darling
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