Beluga whale spotted by boaters off South Shore

Luke Verge, who works at a salmon aquaculture site not far from his hometown of Hubbards, is used to seeing interesting sea creatures but even he was excited to see a wild beluga in the waters off Nova Scotia.

Verge was out for a ride in a motor boat with his friend, Tony Howlett, on Sunday when his companion suddenly shouted about seeing something big about 400 metres off Bayswater Beach.

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"I didn't see it at first, the first time it breached," Verge told CBC's Mainstreet. "Then, after he called attention to it, I turned around and it breached again, and there was no doubt it was a beluga.

"When we first saw it, Tony said, 'That was either the beluga or a porpoise.' And we've both seen plenty of white porpoises before. And the second time, there was no mistaking it. Like, we were so close to it, it was a completely different shape. It was rounded instead of a porpoise which would have been more pointed at the top."

Verge said it was a brief encounter, but it was thrilling to see a beluga.

"It was shocking. Like, I'd read about it when they heard about it in Halifax Harbour and I'm on the water every day but I never thought I'd be the one that saw it," he said.

"I got home pretty late last night so I didn't really have time to talk to anybody about it. But today, I've been telling everybody."

Occasional visitors

Hal Whitehead, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University, said beluga sightings are rare in waters off Nova Scotia.

"It happens once every 10 years or so," said Whitehead.

Belugas usually live in a pod. Whitehead has said the whales that have been seen so far are "most likely one or two vagrant belugas."

"They're very social animals so they're usually found in quite large groups. But occasionally one will go on walkabout and that seems to be what happens with the ones that we see very occasionally in Nova Scotia," he said.

Whitehead said while he agrees with warnings that people should keep their distance, it's not because belugas are dangerous.

"They aren't belligerent animals and they're not aggressive," he said.

"But, they're big animals and if you're in a small boat, a beluga is a big thing. It can knock over a small kayak. So potentially, there's danger to you."

According to Whitehead, most of Canada's belugas live in the Arctic.

"There's a strange population in the St. Lawrence estuary which has a pretty tough time of it. They're the most southerly belugas in the world," he said.

"They're strange in the sense that they're a long way from any other belugas. The nearest other population that anyone sees regularly are up in the Hudson Strait off northern Labrador so a long way away."

Whitehead said he's hopeful any lone beluga in Nova Scotia's waters will eventually make its way back to its pod. He also said the less exposure to humans before that happens, the better.