Humpback whale spotted off the coast of Knokke-Heist

A humpback whale can be up to 16 meters long and weigh up to 30 tons. So there were a lot of spotters on the beach to catch a glimpse of the marine mammal. Dominiek De Wulf, nature observer: “While we were searching with two or three people, we suddenly saw something going up and down in the water. At first we thought it was a dolphin, but it soon turned out to be a bigger animal. It turned out to be a whale. I’m not a whale expert either. It turned out to be a humpback whale, something that is very rare in our sea.”

A few years ago, scientists from the Flanders Marine Institute spotted a humpback whale from a ship. And one once washed up in Lombardsijde, but in the last century, for example, there was only one sighting on our coast. Humpback whales are found more in cold waters.

Humpback whales used to be hunted intensively, but whaling is now prohibited. Since then they have been swimming in our North Sea more often. The animal was also spotted in the Netherlands last week.