{"id":234968,"date":"2025-10-23T17:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T17:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/234968\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T17:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T17:56:07","slug":"a-whale-protected-a-scientist-from-a-huge-shark-a-year-and-15-days-later-they-were-reunited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/234968\/","title":{"rendered":"A Whale Protected A Scientist From A Huge Shark. A Year And 15 Days Later, They Were Reunited"},"content":{"rendered":"

While filming on location off Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, whale scientist Nan Hauser was swimming towards two humpback whales when one of them started charging at her. When it approached, it started moving as if it were trying to tuck her under its fin \u2013 not a very comfortable maneuver for a human being hugged by a multi-ton giant with razor-sharp barnacles on its fins.<\/p>\n

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Fearing for her life, things only got scarier as the humpback whale<\/a> hoisted her out of the water and onto its back. She tried to swim away multiple times, but it wouldn\u2019t let her.<\/p>\n

Eventually she was able to put some distance between her and the enormous humpback whale. Only then did she understand why it had been behaving so strangely.<\/p>\n

In the distance, she could see what looked like two whales, one of which was smacking its tail against the water. On closer inspection, she could see that the second whale was moving peculiarly, with its pectoral fins tucked in and its tail swishing side to side instead of up and down.<\/p>\n

It was at this point Hauser realized she was looking at the biggest tiger shark<\/a> she\u2019d ever seen.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve spent my entire life underwater and I\u2019ve seen plenty of tiger sharks,\u201d she explained during a 2021 interview with BBC Earth<\/a>. \u201cThis was like a truck. This was a huge tiger shark, and it was coming right for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Hauser\u2019s belief that the whale was trying to get her under its fin to protect her. While we can\u2019t speak Whale (yet<\/a>)\u00a0to ask the animal what it was doing, the whale\u2019s final act during that fraught interaction was to get Hauser on its back and ferry her back to her boat. With such a sizable tiger shark on the prowl, it likely saved her life even if it didn\u2019t mean to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still to this day can\u2019t believe it happened and being a scientist it\u2019s even harder,\u201d she said. \u201cIf someone told me this story, I wouldn\u2019t believe them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Humpbacks are known to exhibit altruism<\/a>, a behavioral trait where you do something for another individual that in no way benefits you.\u00a0Hauser’s story is an exceptional example if the whale was indeed trying to save her life, as it means\u00a0the whale put itself in danger to protect an unrelated species.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Quite the hero, then, and amazingly Hauser got to be reunited with her rescuer one year and 15 days later. She was radioed that a whale had swum into the area, and after boating out to see it, spotted that it had two notches on its tail fluke \u2013 just like the one that had saved her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then next I knew the whale came up next to the side of the boat,” said Hauser. “He ignored everyone else on the boat, and he stared directly at me\u2026 I looked at him, and I saw a scar on his head, and I just screamed \u2018he\u2019s back I can\u2019t believe it he\u2019s back!\u2019 and sure enough there he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just whipped on my wet skin and slid\u00a0[into the] water and I swam down next to him and he opened his eyes and he just looked at me and kept nudging me… It was like seeing your dog that you haven\u2019t seen in six months.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 27-33 tons, that\u2019s one hell of a cuddle. Hauser hopes that one day she\u2019ll get to see her cetacean pal again. “I miss him,” she said. “I mean, who misses a whale?”<\/p>\n

An earlier version of this article was published in November 2021<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While filming on location off Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, whale scientist Nan Hauser was swimming towards two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-234968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}