“The whale tried to crush her… but then saved her life” 😨🐋 What looked like an attack turned out to be a rescue mission from an unexpected underwater hero. Nan Hauser faced death — until a 30-ton humpback stepped in. Full story in the article below 👇
The 63-year-old Nan Hauser has been studying cetaceans in their natural environment for over thirty years. The biologist heads the Center for Research and Conservation of Cetaceans, in New Zealand, seeing the main object of study the humpback whales .
On that day, together with a group of colleagues, Nan went inland near the Cook Islands, scientists investigated the migration of whales in the Pacific Ocean. The biologist was underwater, and a group of personnel watched the ongoing process with the help of drones.
Throughout her many years of diving practice, the biologist has never found herself in a dangerous situation. She studies large mammals, therefore she clearly follows the rule – never touch animals and behave yourself as calm as possible.
For the first time in her life, a woman experienced acute panic when through the water she saw a thirty-ton carcass of a whale, rapidly and inevitably rising towards her. The male humpback did not leave her a chance when attacked. There were several meters of ocean water between the scientist and the ship with her colleagues and could not count on help.
The only thing left for Nan was to calm down and wait for the development of events, since usually, whales do not harm divers.
But this male did not change the direction and, coming close to the diver, tried to crush her with his fin. The whale began to nudge the woman, dive under her, his behavior was strange and dangerous, since Nan did not have much oxygen left. In addition, another humpback who was swimming nearby began to actively beat the water with a huge tail. If Nan had been hit, it would have ended at least in fractures.
The longest ten minutes in her life ended unexpectedly – the whale pushed the woman to the surface with a powerful movement not far from the ship with people. The bewildered faces of the scientists who hastily picked up Nan reflected all degrees of amazement and relief at the same time.
As it turned out later, it was not the actions of a pair of humpbacks that frightened the people who watched the dramatic action from the air. It turns out that a group of fierce predators, who more than once attacked swimmers, tiger sharks, were approaching an unsuspecting scuba diver. Their intentions were quite obvious and, at some point, the scientists turned off the cameras so as not to film the bloody scene. They simply did not manage to help a colleague, and then, unexpectedly, whales came for the aid of the researcher.
It should be noted that the actions of humpback whales remember of a caring for a baby. In nature, whales rarely form a group outside the mating season. And the female with the baby is usually accompanied by males. Sharks and killer whales are considered to be the natural enemies of young whales. Many adult animals from adolescence have scars remained from the teeth of predators on the body.
