Whales eat divers — or almost — in a new viral video about a humpback whale feeding frenzy . Hit that button to see the footage that’s already closing in on a million views since it was posted to YouTube on Saturday.
Shawn Stamback titled the piece, “ Whales almost eat divers.” He noted that the divers had a close call with the humpback whales that breached as the team were diving offshore Souza Rock on the central California coast.
Humpback whales are more noted for eating krill and small fish. You can see the huge school of sardines that has attracted the whales — and, I suspect, caused the divers to set up their stunt and their cameras. In my humble opinion, the divers were more at risk from being splashed to death than from being eaten.
Everyone had something to say about the so-called whales eat divers video.
Youtube poster GowanBray noted: “4000 sardines were harmed in the making of this video.”
Another YouTuber Sean Smith had some blunt advice: “F****n’ idiots…get out of the water.”
Over 300 people chimed in with their thoughts on Reddit. A skeptic objected to the title of the video, stating that the whales could not have eaten the divers even by accident.
According to Redditor DrKomeil: “The baleen whales have very small throats…The whale would likely try to push you out with its tongue, as a human is a large obstruction to its feeding. The most likely scenario is that you drown as the whale tries to pick you out of its mouth, and float to the surface dead a bit later.”
But ConradW rebutted: “Can’t they just crush you with that massive tongue and turn you into smoothie?”
Some guys on Reddit apparently took this pretty seriously, because the playful discussion devolved into a surprisingly in-depth debate on whether or not the humpback whales could have swallowed the divers by accident and then dragged them down to the ocean depths.
Me, I’m just in it for the cheap laughs.
By the way, don’t try this at home. I don’t want to hear that one of my readers got squished or drowned trying to duplicate a whales eat divers video.
[Humpback whale still photo by Whit Welles via Wikimedia Picture of the Day ]