'Finding a needle in the entire Pacific Ocean;' Rare right whale spotted in Monterey Bay
MONTEREY -- A rare North Pacific right whale was spotted in Monterey Bay over the weekend.
"It is a bigger thing than finding a needle in a haystack," said Pualani Dalton, captain of the Monterey Whale Watch boat that spotted mammal. "It is like finding a needle in the entire Pacific Ocean."
Dalton says there are only 32 known North Pacific right whales swimming off the U.S. and Canadian Pacific Coast, and according to marine biologists, Sunday's sighting was only one in about 20 confirmed sightings of the whale along the California coast since the mid-1950s.
Originally, the whale-watching tour thought they had spotted a humpback whale breaching in the bay, but they quickly figured out they had what Dalton described as "winning the lottery" of whale watching.
"The biggest giveaway is when it started pec[toral fin] slapping like it was saying, 'Hey guys, come over here, I'm not a humpback, let me show you," smiled Dalton. "And this individual put on a show for us, which was absolutely incredible."
Dalton says the whale was visible for about 15 minutes before disappearing.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed through photos that the sighting was indeed a North Pacific right whale and is now hoping to identify the whale within the population.
