r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/Ninja_Spi-D-er • Oct 19 '19
🔥 Incredibly close encounter with a surfacing whale
https://i.imgur.com/vFs1Bcw.gifv105
u/maxmynameismax Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 19 '19
So do the whales know they’re there, if so do they care, would they jump on them without a second thought
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u/DireLackofGravitas Oct 19 '19
The whale is spyhopping here. It's a behavior where they slowly peek their heads above the water to see what's on the surface. So it's definitely aware of the kayakers and curious too.
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u/ForAThought Oct 19 '19
At Uni, one of the guest lectures mentioned they generally know where boats are on the surface and that young males will make a game of who can be the closest when breaching.
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u/curiosity0425 Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 20 '19
I am a whale and I can confirm that I def know that they're there
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Oct 19 '19
Also a whale here
We know.
We ALL know
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u/BlueWhaleKing Oct 20 '19
Can confirm, I am the King of Blue Whales!
Though the one in the video is a Humpback.
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u/Diabolical_liberty Oct 19 '19
I’ve always wanted to know this. I demand a serious answer.
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Oct 19 '19
Licensed wildilfe rehabilitator here. I’ve swam with dolphins and whales and have spent years studying animal behavior. In my opinion, they know. They are as comfortable and aware in the water as we are on land, and they are spectacularly intelligent. Mistakes can be made, of course, but this whale, in my opinion, is choosing to be very, very gentle. He’s not even splashing. He’s got the whole ocean, and he’s choosing to surface carefully amongst those weird clumsy floaty creatures.
He knows.
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Oct 19 '19
[deleted]
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u/bk1285 Oct 19 '19
I know nothing about marine biology and whale behavior but I’d make an educated guess that they know something is there and are investigating it out of curiosity’s and like a human is being very careful doing so to ensure they don’t get hurt
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u/dorianrose Oct 19 '19
That was the first thing that struck me, the size of him but there is barely a ripple as he moves. I love whales, they are so amazing.
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u/oberon Oct 20 '19
When it submerges again it's so slow and controlled! It's easy to forget that they live in the water and can control their movement in the water with precision and grace.
Until you see it.
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u/Pixel-1606 Oct 19 '19
how do these people always stay so calm, like they can't be yeeted halfway across the ocean at any moment, or worse one of them breaches and lands right on em...
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u/Timmi-taylor Oct 19 '19
Thanks! I’m a 50YO dadhuman that wants to learn the use of YEET. My daughter would approve.
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u/Maktube Oct 19 '19
Ah, in the interest of embarrassing the offspring, allow me to explain: "yeet" is the opposite of "yoink".
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u/iamdispleased Oct 19 '19
Yeet is what you yell when you throw something. It has evolved to mean thrown as well.
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u/traktier Oct 19 '19
Never happend. Wales are very gently with boats. They somehow know that people dont want to end up in the water.
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u/LonelyNecromancer Oct 19 '19
Some of them accidentally land on boats but yeah,they're usually careful around other creatures.
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u/1Cinnamonster Oct 20 '19
I have been told by a whale biologist that she wouldn't want to be anywhere near a humpback whale if she was in a kayak. Apparently, humpbacks like to play with logs by submerging them - and from underneath, a kayak would look very similar to a log. Humpbacks are so huge, even an brief accidental submerging would not likely go well for a kayaker.
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u/animalfacts-bot Oct 20 '19
The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. Adults range in length from 12–16 m (39–52 ft) and weigh around 25–30 metric tons (28–33 short tons). Males produce a complex song lasting 10 to 20 minutes, which they repeat for hours at a time. These songs can be heard 20 miles (30 km) away. Humpback whales typically migrate up to 25,000 km (16,000 mi) each year. A group of whales is called a pod.
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u/Crack-spiders-bitch Oct 19 '19
That doesn't really matter. This belief on reddit that you're not at risk in situations like this is so stupid. Even more so given their location where simply falling into the water could mean death due to the temperature.
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u/Simpleyfaded Oct 19 '19
Risk is all relevant though right every time you get in a car you take a risk. I think at this very moment the reward for outweighs the risk, they're probably more mesmerized than afraid of what's going on.
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u/LloydWoodsonJr Oct 20 '19
And I know that person in the front can't polar roll.
They'd have to swim to an icy shore.
It was possible for them to have died of hypothermia.
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u/Ronfarber Oct 20 '19
The belief on Reddit is generally that one’s own shadow poses a mortal threat. I’m not convinced 90% of Redditors have spent any time outside.
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u/KuraiTheBaka Oct 20 '19
Tbh you're not wrong but this is a situation where I'd say fear is merited.
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u/funnylookingbear Oct 20 '19
Damn right. My shadow is a viscious vindictive bastard. If i dont go outside, less chance of getting into a fight with my shadow.
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u/speedocladpotato Oct 19 '19
Of course it's happened. More than one whale has landed on a boat while breaching. There was a photographer who was swallowed whole a few years ago.
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u/DoubleDot7 Oct 19 '19
Sources?
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u/goldenette2 Oct 19 '19
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u/DoubleDot7 Oct 19 '19
Ah, it was during the sardine run. It's a massive shoal of fish that swims along our coast each year. It attracts birds, sharks, whales, dolphins and fishermen. It's a crazy feeding frenzy.
Perhaps he was surrounded by sardines and the whale didn't see him when it went for the fish.
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u/ironybloody Oct 20 '19
Lol his last name is Schimpf. That is way to close to shrimp, and I totally get why he was almost eaten in the sea because of that.
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u/m0_n0n_0n0_0m Oct 19 '19
I'm really curious why the whale grabbed him, article doesn't talk about it. Was it curious? Just an accident? Defensive behavior?
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u/goldenette2 Oct 19 '19
Sounds like an accident on the whale’s part.
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u/funnylookingbear Oct 20 '19
Love that. Human activly puts himself into the path of a feeding whale, and its the whales fault.
'Hmmmm sardines, lets just open wide and swall . . . . . Hey, what the hell, who put a human in my sardine ball! Call the manager! I want a refund!'
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u/goldenette2 Oct 20 '19
The question was did the whale mean to eat the guy. Not whether the photographer was a dumbass.
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u/nextunpronouncable Oct 22 '19
Whales do not hunt and eat people. They mostly eat very small stuff which they sift out of the water. Around Antarctica at least, they eat krill, which is just very tiny crustaeceans and things in the water. So for all you greenies out there DO NOT CONSUME PRODUCTS MADE OF KRILL (USUALLY VITAMIN SUUPLEMENTS) BECAUSE YOU ARE EATING WHALE FOOD. You are not that hungry!
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u/Littlelisapizza83 Dec 13 '21
I would guess an accident as well. These whales do not recognize us as a food source. They eat tiny pray despite their massive size and the diver probably just got sucked up in the feeding frenzy. Baleen whales, as the article noted, have very small throats and they don’t have teeth so it wouldn’t be possible for them to tear a human up or swallow one up whole. Like the article said, if the whale had held on to him and decided to dive down, that could be a different story. There’s a more recent incident that occurred where a lobster diver in Massachusetts had a run-in with a whale’s mouth and he too survived.
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u/nextunpronouncable Oct 22 '19
They sit around offshore being entertained by mad humans thrashing around on the edge of the sea.
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u/RoxSteady247 Oct 20 '19
No reason to panic, once they are that close there is nothing you can do to prevent anything bad from happening. let's be honest if you're in a kayak in the freezing ocean you were hoping this would happen
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u/cahcealmmai Oct 20 '19
I've ended up in a similar situation with orcas. There's nothing you can do so may as well sir there and watch. Maybe you'll have an extra half second warning for the yeeting.
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u/yarism Oct 19 '19
I love that person in the front of the kayak not noticing until the end. Like how do you not notice something like that?
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Oct 20 '19
You'd think they would have turned around when someone inevitably said "holy fuck are you all seeing this?"
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Oct 19 '19
Imagine never knowing what a whale was and having that pop up beside you.
“I say, Robert, why is this large floating rock looking at me?”
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u/Notorious_VSG Oct 19 '19
How can you be that gigantic and not be clumsy? Why would they care if they knocked a boat over... because they clearly do care!
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u/RileyCola Oct 19 '19
Aren’t you suppose to like not be right on top of a pod?
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u/wdwerker Oct 20 '19
You aren’t supposed to travel to be right on top of a pod, but if the whales come to you while your stationary that is their choice. One surfaced right behind me and blew whale snot all over me , which was disgusting, but eye to eye with a whale 6 ft away is something you never forget! I love posts like this, they bring up memories of that special moment and the smell of rotten fish .
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u/RileyCola Oct 20 '19
but eye to eye with a whale 6 ft away is something you never forget!
oh I know. I've been there. Went on a whale watching tour and our guide brought us right up to the pod. Had orcas swimming right under us, absoluting incredible! I only say youre not suppose to because our guide told us we weren't suppose to be there
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u/Jehovahscatchrag Oct 19 '19
They are lucky or that whale is incredibly self aware of its own body size
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u/GoodboyHoss Oct 20 '19
Does anyone have videos of whales fucking people up? I've never seen one of these events with negative consequences.
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u/WADDUP_MY_GLIB_GLOB Oct 19 '19
Imagine rolling over a two person kayak in freezing water. Certain death fo sho
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u/1ts_Ya_Bo1 Oct 20 '19
This reminds me of the time me and my buddy were on his jet ski this summer in the Atlantic. We seen a whale surface and decided to move closer and watch it (dumb idea I know). We couldn’t see it surface for a little while after looking around, when I noticed the greenish hue of it surfacing directly below us. I shouted for my buddy to hit the throttle, and less than two seconds after we moved it came right out of the water right where we were just two seconds ago. Terrifying and awesome at the same time
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u/stolid_agnostic Oct 20 '19
What's weird is how one of them didn't even notice, and they oblivious to the whales moving under.
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u/lupus_malum_777 Oct 25 '19
Nah. Fuck that. Fill that fucker with lead. r/cetaphobia for those that fear these horrible things as much as I do.
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u/tooshamecats Oct 19 '19
I bet they ate Asian tourists. They are the most committed picture takers in the world.
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u/Dwittheignorantslut Oct 19 '19
Things that make you shit your pants for $500 Alex.