By A Staff Reporter

MUSCAT — The blue whale has been sighted again. This is the fourth confirmed sighting of the blue whale in Oman this century and the first in the Arabian Sea after the sightings recorded by whaling vessels in the 1800s.

This rare sighting has been recorded by the Oman Whale and Dolphin Research Group (OWDRG).

The OWDRG, a non-profit team of Muscat-based volunteer scientists, chanced upon the blue whale during a recent two-week study of whales in Dhofar region.

This put to rest any doubts raised by sceptics that the blue whale does not exist in the Omani seas.

After an earlier sighting of the blue whale there was no sign of it, leading many skeptics to believe that it could have been any other whale but a ‘blue’.

The blue whale has a small and indistinct dorsal fin, which is very close to the tail fin (called the flukes).

It has also a broad head of uniform grey, compared with the narrower, V-shaped head of the fin whale, the blue whale’s closest relative.

Gianna Minton and Tim Collins, who were part of the OWDRG team, detailed their trip and many other valuable aspects of their scientific study.

"Although rough seas hampered progress on at least five of the planned working days, the trip was extremely successful with over 1,000km surveyed resulting in more than 30 separate encounters with whales and dolphins.

"Almost all of the objectives of the field research were filled, leading to the acquisition of valuable new information," Minton and Collins said.

As for the blue whale, Gianna told the Times of Oman that there were records of blue whale sightings in Oman during the whaling era, dating back to 1868. "After that, no blue whale sightings were recorded until November 26, 1996, when a large individual was seen off Muscat Island. The next sighting was in November 1999, when three individuals were spotted near Muscat and photographed by a tourist on a dolphin-watching tour.

"Two weeks later, a lone blue whale was sighted and photographed nearly a kilometre away from Bandar Jissah," Gianna noted.

"Our sighting in Dhofar is the first in the Arabian Sea since those recorded by whaling vessels in the 1800s," she said, adding that this did not necessarily mean that the whales had disappeared for a century and suddenly returned.