A tourist boat in Japan has captured rare images of an endangered right whale off the north island of Hokkaido.
The whale watching ship Aurora was in the waters off Shiretoko Peninsula.
The captain says they spotted the whale and knew it was different by the way it moved in the water.
It was between 32 and 59-feet long. They identified it as a rarely-seen right whale.
Only a few hundred are thought to remain. Right whales are one of the most endangered of all large whales, with a long history of human exploitation and no signs of recovery despite protection from whaling since the 1930s.
Experts say it’s like hitting the lottery to encounter one and American researchers searched for years to find them without doing so.
Right whales are curious creatures and reportedly like to “show off.”
The Aurora’s captain and fellow whale watchers are hopeful that right whales will grow in population and be more prominent in the area.
