It is no lie that they are by far the gentle giants of the sea or in my eyes the ’Ballerinas of the ocean’, which can be seen when they gracefully swim around one another in a hypnotizing fashion. However, do no let their natural passive behaviour towards humans fool you. They can be incredibly intense at times, trust me!! I have seen it & luckily at the time I was quite a good distance away too.

The main thing that stirs them up besides breeding their grounds in the winter season - it is the Orca. When they are calves they do become potential food for Orca with the apex predator attempting co ordinated attacks that have a success rate of about 20%. This means most humpbacks do survive the predation attempts from orca when they are very young. As a result it seems these gentle giants hold bit of a grudge towards the predator. It has been recorded numerous times around the world that when humpback adults here orca vocalizing they immediately swim towards them and attempt to chase them away. Originally, it was thought that they only interfered when other humpbacks and their calves were under attack. We now know it doesn’t matter what animal they are hunting humpbacks will intervene and attempt to chase the orca away.

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A 40 ton gentle giant to the rescue of other marine mammals under predation attempts from killer whales.

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Photo by friend and colleague Jens Wilkstrom
Check out his website here~ Jens Wilkstrom Photography
Click image to view full size.

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