A huge whale was caught on video breaching from the sea, and seemingly swallowing a kayaker in front of his shocked father.

Dell Simancas and his son Adrian were on a trekking and packrafting trip when they arrived in the Strait of Magellan of southern Chile. While they were bobbing around in the sea a humpback whale suddenly emerged from the water - and the video showed the massive mammal seeming to swallow Adrian whole.

Thankfully, he and his raft bobbed back to the surface after several seconds. Adrian’s dad calls out to him, repeatedly telling him to “relax” and “hold onto” his raft. He can be heard reassuring his son: “I’m coming.”

While clutching his overturned raft, Adrian grabs hold of his dad’s canoe and the pair make their way back to shore. Musician Adrian, 24, said: “I didn’t understand what was happening, I thought it had eaten me. It’s a tale that seems like fiction. I lived to tell it.”

Venezuelan anaesthesiologist Dell, 49, added: “I heard a loud sound and when I turned around, my son had already vanished. Fortunately, Adrian quickly returned to the surface and although he was in shock, he did not suffer any serious injuries.”

Last month Brits were left with awe when a humpback whale was spotted playing off the coast of the UK, as they jumped in and out of the sea. A crowd of people could not believe their eyes as they gathered at the seafront to watch the majestic mammal playing.

As they watched on, the beautiful whale - identified by many as a humpback owing to its large front flippers - breached several times as it swam past the coast of Hastings, East Sussex. It was caught on video by Kitty Dale. Several people commented on a video shared on Facebook .

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One part of the video shows the seal climbing right onto the whale. Moments later the whale breaches and launches the seal as in plunges back into the ocean.

A seal found a new way to travel - by sitting on a whale making its way through the water. Filmed during a whale watching tour on the Baja Peninsula of Mexico.

Off-camera voices can be heard laughing as the pair, seen briefly above the water, make their way down below. As for the seal's reason for jumping, the video says: 'We can only speculate, but the fact that the seal was quite young, was out a long ways from shore by himself and had quite a sleepy demeanor suggested he was just tired.

'Upon seeing something to sit on, never mind that it was a whale, he went for it.'

The video shows how cute and tiny this guy is! You can also see in the video that he seems quite tired. We can speculate that by riding the whale he was just trying to take a rest.

The gray whale is one of the animal kingdom's great migrators. Traveling in groups called pods, some of these giants swim 12,430 miles round-trip from their summer home in Alaskan waters to the warmer waters off the Mexican coast. The whales winter and breed in the shallow southern waters and balmier climate. Other gray whales live in the seas near Korea.

Like all whales, gray whales surface to breathe, so migrating groups are often spotted from North America's west coast. These whales were once the target of extensive hunting, and by early in the 20th century they were in serious danger of extinction.

Today gray whales are protected by international law, and their numbers have grown. In 1994, the gray whale was removed from the United States endangered species list.

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One of Iceland’s two whaling companies has announced it will stop whaling for good. This welcome decision, which comes just days after Iceland announced it will cancel all whale hunts for the second consecutive year, takes us one step closer to the demise of an inhumane industry built on immense suffering and harm for the ocean’s gentle giants.

IP Utgerd, the main minke whaling company in Iceland, told AFP news agency that it is no longer economically viable to hunt for whales in Icelandic waters, with its managing director, Gunnar Jonsson, saying “I’m never going to hunt whales again, I’m stopping for good.”

Meanwhile, the other Icelandic whaling company, Hvalur, which specializes in taking the far larger fin whales, has said it will cancel its hunt this year because of export problems and, to a lesser extent, restrictions linked to the coronavirus and social distancing requirements. Chief executive Kristjan Loftsson blamed stiff competition with Japan, the main export market for Iceland’s fin whale meat, for the decision.

 Loftsson said Japan’s food safety requirements were more stringent for imported meat than for meat from whales killed by Japanese whalers. Whales are especially vulnerable to environmental contaminants, which makes their meat unsafe for human consumption.

It was only last February that an Icelandic minister proudly announced new whaling quotas intended to allow the killing of more than 2,000 whales over the following five years. The sudden turnaround by Iceland indicates there are larger factors at play in the decision, including strong international censure of Iceland’s whaling. Importantly, in recent years, the industry has also faced internal scrutiny, including a growing national controversy about its cost to the country’s taxpayers and its legality.

In 2018, the last year during which Iceland’s whaling fleet was active, it killed a total of 146 fin whales and six minke whales.


The news from Iceland marks a major turning point in the battle against whaling. We are happy that the whaling companies there have realized the futility of this enterprise in the modern world. We now turn our focus to the two remaining outliers who continue to defy the global whaling moratorium, killing hundreds of whales each year: Japan and Norway. Their fleets remain active during the pandemic, even as the market for highly-subsidized whale meat is declining rapidly. It is time for these two nations to join Iceland and hang up their harpoons for good.
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The world’s second-largest mammal took advantage of the absence of human bustle and noise around major city to make a “very rare” appearance.

Two fin whales were spotted near Marseille, southern France, which, like almost all of Europe, is in lockdown during the coronavirus crisis.

A sea patrol filmed the pair powering through the waters off the Calanques national park, a protected reserve of outstanding natural beauty.

Didier Reault, president of the park board, said it was “very, very rare” for fin whales to be spotted and filmed at such close quarters in the reserve’s waters.

The whales usually stay further out in deeper Mediterranean seas but seem to have been drawn in by the halt in maritime traffic, water sports, fishing and pleasure craft, Mr Reault said.

“The absence of human activity means the whales are far more serene, calm, and confident about rediscovering their playground that they abandon when there is maritime transport activity,” he said.


“It is clear that the lockdown of humans is helping nature and biodiversity rediscover their natural spaces.”

The fin whale, the second-largest mammal in the world, after the blue whale, weighs up to 70 tons and grows at least 65ft long. It has a distinct ridge along its back behind the dorsal fin, which gives it the nickname “razorback”.

Wild animals have ventured into other places vacated by humans, too. In Llandudno, north Wales, mountain goats have roamed through the streets.

Mr Reault said he hoped people would emerge from lockdowns with greater appreciation for biodiversity, being “a bit more respectful of the tranquillity and serenity of animals”.

“We should tell ourselves that if we want to keep seeing [nature], we must know how to respect it,” he said.
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2 rorquals ont été observés dans le @ParcCalanque🐳
Des images rares capturées par la patrouille ULAM13. Cette observation du 2ème plus grand animal au monde est un indice de + sur un potentiel effet du confinement sur le comportement de la faune sauvage. https://t.co/YWPadL0DXH pic.twitter.com/YnpbaOBEgC

— Parc des Calanques (@ParcCalanques) April 8, 2020

Another rare white killer whale has been spotted in Nemuro Strait off Rausu in the northeastern part of Japan's northernmost prefecture after the same kind of orca was photographed there in May.

The mammal that was recently filmed is not believed to be the same one that was spotted in May as they have different dorsal fin shapes and body color.

The video was captured at around 2:30 p.m. on July 19 by a guide who was working on board the sightseeing boat Hamanasu about 8 kilometers off the coastline of Rausu, according to a staff member of the operating company. The white killer whale was seen with several common orcas close by the boat.

The animal was also photographed about 10 minutes later by Erika Oki, who was working as a guide on a Shiretoko Nature Cruise sightseeing boat about 7 kilometers northeast from Rausu Fishing Port. Oki confirmed a white killer whale was among a pod of about five regular orcas but the boat could only manage to get as close as about 300 meters from the animals as they were moving fast.

Nemuro Strait is located between the town of Rausu on the Shiretoko Peninsula, designated as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site, and Kunashiri Island, one of the four disputed isles comprising the Northern Territories effectively controlled by Russia.

On May 16, scientists with the University Alliance for Hokkaido Orca Research Project (Uni-HORP) photographed a white killer whale among a pod of about 10 such creatures in the strait, more than 10 kilometers from Rausu. It is very rare to spot a white killer whale near Japan, according to the group.


Masato Hasegawa, a captain with Shiretoko Nature Cruise, said, "The white killer whale found on July 19 is grayish and its dorsal fin is not so large. It seems to be different from the one spotted on May 16."

The Trump administration announced Friday that it approved requests from five companies to survey for oil and gas under the floor of the Atlantic Ocean using a process some scientists have warned is disastrous for marine life.

The authorizations from the National Marine Fisheries Service allow companies to “incidentally, but not intentionally, harass marine mammals” while using seismic air guns to map fossil fuel reserves, according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The new authorizations don’t necessarily guarantee that testing will occur, since the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management still needs to issue its own permits approving the process, according to U.S. News & World Report. However, the agency’s acting director said earlier this year that he expects to give the OK.

Seismic testing involves sending extremely loud bursts of air though the water to produce shock waves. Conservationists say the loud air blasts, which occur every 10 to 12 seconds and can go on for weeks to months, are majorly disruptive to animals like sea turtles, dolphins and the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Marine scientist Matthew Huelsenbeck of environmental group Oceana previously compared the effect to “dynamite going off in your living room or in your backyard every ten seconds for days to weeks at a time.”

The NOAA notes that various precautions will be put into place to mitigate harm to marine life. Those steps include halting surveys when certain species are observed nearby and prohibiting testing in some regions during certain months of the year ― like during calving season for right whales, Bloomberg notes.


But critics say the precautions are simply not enough. For instance, while blasts will be prohibited within 56 miles of endangered marine mammals, Oceana campaign director Diane Hoskins told National Geographic that sound from the blasts can travel up to 2,000 miles underwater.

In addition to outcry from environmental groups, numerous state officials also oppose the plans due to impacts on commercial fishing, and because offshore drilling could threaten lucrative coastal tourism, according to The Washington Post.

Seismic surveys have been conducted in U.S. waters and around the world for decades, and the NOAA has issued multiple seismic survey authorizations off the coast of Alaska. However, seismic surveys haven’t been used for oil and gas exploration off of the nation’s East Coast since the 1980s. Last year, the Obama administration rejected permits authorizing seismic testing in the region.

The step toward ramping up fossil fuel exploration comes on the heels of a dire federal climate report indicating that the Earth is barreling toward catastrophic warming if drastic reductions in emissions don’t occur.
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It's official. NOAA Fisheries approving permits that will allow companies to harass/harm marine life as they search for oil and gas in Atlantic using seismic airgun blasting.

Below, email NOAA's Topher Holmes sent to staffers on Hill his morning: pic.twitter.com/uFRIzmAFd4

— Chris D'Angelo (@c_m_dangelo) November 30, 2018