NSW: Whale acrobatics as experts try to determine sex

AAP General News (Australia)
08-24-1999
NSW: Whale acrobatics as experts try to determine sex

SYDNEY, Aug 24 AAP - The southern right whale visiting Sydney Harbour wowed onlookers today
by putting on a show of acrobatics and repeatedly catapulting itself out of the water.

About 100 locals lined the shores of Forty Baskets Beach at Balgowlah Heights to catch a
once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of the whale, which swam to within 50 metres of shore.

A National Parks and Wildlife spokesman said a whale expert would later today try to
determine whether the whale, dubbed Alex, is a pregnant female as some believe.

The whale has spent the past week frolicking off Sydney's shores.

The spokesman said people on the shore were closer to the whale than those on the water,
who had to stay outside an 100m exclusion zone.

He said at one stage the whale was jumping tail-first out of the water every 15 seconds,
but later was breaching only every minute or so.

It is not known whether the whale is jumping out of water because it is preparing to give
birth.

"It is still not conclusive whether it is a female whale. Apparently both sexes do things
like this at this time of year," he said.

If pregnant, it is expected it will give birth in the harbour area in the next few days and
could spend up to another week recuperating there.

A whale last calved off Sydney's coast in 1993, near the northern beaches.

AAP km/maur/br

KEYWORD: WHALE (CARRIED EARLIER)

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