The whale was spotted by expat Madeleine Tisell while out on a longtail boat yesterday afternoon. Ms Tisell is also one of the people who spotted a killer whale off the same beach on Jan 8. (See story here)
“We had been out fishing and suddenly heard a noise coming from the water, we looked and just a few metres from the boat was a whale. At first we thought it was another killer whale, but it was a lot bigger, about 18-20metres long,” Ms Tisell said.
“We are often out on or boat but we have never seen anything like this before. In the space of 10 days we have seen a killer whale and then this whale,” she added.
Omura's whales appear to be restricted to the shelf and deep waters of tropical and subtropical regions, with records from the eastern Indian Ocean which includes Thailand's ocean.
Kongkiet Kittiwattanawong of the Marine Endangered Species Unit told The Phuket News after seeing the photos, “This whale is an omura whale. One was seen previously off Koh Racha, but I am not sure whether its the same one or not. If the photo was clearer I would be able to tell,” he said.
“This species can be seen in the Andaman Sea and South China Sea, and there has been 33 recordings of sightings of omura whales in the Andaman and Gulf of Thailand. However, some of those sightings have sadly been of dead whales,” he added.