A Whale Protected A Scientist From A Huge Shark. A Year And 15 Days Later, They Were Reunited

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 – not a very comfortable maneuver for a human being hugged by a multi-ton giant with razor-sharp barnacles on its fins.

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Fearing for her life, things only got scarier as the humpback whale hoisted her out of the water and onto its back. She tried to swim away multiple times, but it wouldn’t let her.

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.

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.

It was at this point Hauser realized she was looking at the biggest tiger shark she’d ever seen.

“I’ve spent my entire life underwater and I’ve seen plenty of tiger sharks,” she explained during a 2021 interview with BBC Earth. “This was like a truck. This was a huge tiger shark, and it was coming right for me.”

It’s Hauser’s belief that the whale was trying to get her under its fin to protect her. While we can’t speak Whale (yet) to ask the animal what it was doing, the whale’s 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’t mean to.

“I still to this day can’t believe it happened and being a scientist it’s even harder,” she said. “If someone told me this story, I wouldn’t believe them.”

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

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 – just like the one that had saved her life.

“And 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… I looked at him, and I saw a scar on his head, and I just screamed ‘he’s back I can’t believe it he’s back!’ and sure enough there he was.”

“I just whipped on my wet skin and slid [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’t seen in six months.”

At 27-33 tons, that’s one hell of a cuddle. Hauser hopes that one day she’ll get to see her cetacean pal again. "I miss him," she said. "I mean, who misses a whale?"

An earlier version of this article was published in November 2021.