“I knew there was a chance I could easily be killed by this whale,” whale scientist Nan Hauser says in a BBC Earth interview from 2021. Hauser was recalling an odd and startling incident she had with a humpback whale and a tiger shark.
While it may sound like the plot of a “walks into a bar” joke, her incredibly near encounter with the overprotective whale was truly pretty frightening. Hauser was swimming towards two humpback whales off the coast of Rarotonga, Cook Islands when one charged at her.
Whales, typically seen as gentle giants, are extraordinarily powerful creatures with razor-sharp barnacles on their fins. As a result, hugging one is difficult if you don’t want to get squished or spiralized. In the instance of Hauser, the whale appeared determined to conceal her under its pectoral fin.
Things only grew scarier as the humpback whale hoisted her out of the water on its back and refused to let her go. When she finally had some room, she realized why the humpback was acting so strangely.
She could see two whales in the distance, one of which was slamming its tail into the sea. She saw that the second whale was moving strangely, with its pectoral fins tucked under and its tail swishing side to side rather than up and down.
Hauser recognized she was looking at the largest tiger shark she’d ever seen at this point.
“I’ve spent my entire life underwater and I’ve seen plenty of tiger sharks,” she said. “It felt like a truck. This was a massive tiger shark charging straight at me.”
Hauser believes the whale was attempting to protect her by encircling her with its fin. While we can’t yet communicate with Whale, its goal to save her life appears to be proven, as its final action was to get her on its back and bring her back to the boat.
“I still to this day can’t believe it happened and being a scientist it’s even harder,” she went on to say. “If someone told me this story, I wouldn’t believe them.”
Humpback whales are known to exhibit altruism, a behavioral feature in which you do something for another person that benefits you in no manner. Hauser’s story is an excellent example, as the whale put itself in harm’s way to protect a human.
Quite the hero back then and Hauser was reunited with her rescuer one year and 15 days later. After receiving word that a whale had swum into the vicinity, Hauser saw its tail fluke had two notches, much like the one that had saved her life.
“And then next I knew the whale came up next to the side of the boat,” Hauser recalled. “He ignored everyone else on the boat and fixed his gaze on me… I glanced at him and saw a scar on his head and said, ‘he’s back, I can’t believe it, he’s back!’ and sure enough, he was there.
“I simply put on my wetskin and slid [into] the water and swam down next to him, and he opened his eyes and just looked at me and nudged me… It was like seeing your dog after not seeing him in six months.” That’s quite a cuddle at 27-33 tons.
Hauser also stated she wanted to see her cetacean friend again. “I miss him,” she admitted. “I mean, who misses a whale?”
