Would you let a humpback whale beat you up to save your life?
Marine biologist Nan Hauser didn’t realize she was answering this question October when a giant hump, perhaps 22,700 kilograms (50,000 pounds) swam up to her in the waters off the Cook Islands, and started to pull her out of the ocean with his huge head.
“I’ve spent 28 years underwater with whales, and have never had a whale so tactile and so insistent on putting me on his head, or belly, or back, or, most of all, trying to tuck me under his huge pectoral fin,” Hauser, president of the Cook Islands-based Center for Cetacean Research and Conservation, told the Daily Mirror.
This lasted for about 10 minutes, Hauser was filled with adrenaline and she was thinking the worst.
“I thought the camera crew was going to end up filming my death. One whip of a whale’s tail on you, and the pressure would break your bones.”
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