Rare four-metre-long whale caught in Karachi

An extremely rare whale got caught in a fishing-net off the coast of Karachi in an unlikely sighting of the species in the Indian Ocean.

The four-metre-long ‘Longman’s beaked whale’ – one of the rarest and least known members of the beaked whale family – got caught in a fishing boat’s net about 22 nautical miles off the coast of Karachi.

The rare species – known to be found in waters off the coasts of Somalia, South Africa and Kenya – has seldom been spotted in waters in this part of the world. The whale was released around half an hour after it got entangled in the fishing net.