(Image via fisheries.noaa.gov)

Staff Writer: Emma Bowser

Email: ebowser@umassd.edu 

Off the coast of Chile, 23 year-old Adrián Simancas had an unusual encounter with a humpback whale while he was out packrafting with his 49-year old father, Dell Simancas. The two of them had been going about their day when Adrián was unexpectedly scooped up by a whale.

“I felt something hit me from behind — all this happened in a second — something dark blue or white enveloped me, and a slimy texture brushed my face,” Adrián recounted. 

“Then it closed completely, and I started to sink, and I just closed my eyes, expecting an impact. But instead, I felt as if I was surrounded by water. I realized that I was in something’s mouth and I had been eaten.”

Luckily, Dell was able to capture the event on camera, providing the internet with a 1-minute video as evidence. 

Jooke Robbins, director of the Humpback Whale Studies Program at the Center for Coastal Studies in Massachusetts, suggested that the reason the whale scooped Adrián up is because it was a surface-feeding whale. 

Humpback whales eat by filtering ocean water through their baleen, flexible follicles lining the whale’s mouth that are made of keratin, to catch krill and small fish. 

This is done by keeping their mouth open while they swim through the ocean and then closing their mouth to push all the water back out, leaving the krill and fish behind for the whale to swallow.

Thus, humpback whales, along with other baleen whales, pose no predatory risk to humans. In fact, they can’t eat humans at all due to their baleen. 

However, it is still dangerous to swim with humpback whales. They are large, wild animals, and if startled, they could harm swimmers who are too close. This is why there are regulations for whale tours一to ensure that whales can feed peacefully without being disturbed by tour boats.

While Adrián’s experience shows that whales are harmless to humans when left to their own devices, local authorities still encourage people to be cautious and give whales a large berth.

It also isn’t the first time something like this has happened.

Back in 2021, off the coast of Massachusetts, Michael Packard found himself in the mouth of a humpback whale while diving for lobsters.

“I was lobster diving, and a humpback whale tried to eat me. I was in his closed mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds before he rose to the surface and spit me out. I am very bruised up but have no broken bones.”

Packard’s fishing partner, Josiah Mayo, saw the whale breach and thought it was a great white shark until it released Packard from its mouth. 

Unlike Adrián, Packard was not on the surface of the water when he was scooped up by a whale. Instead, he was caught in a bubble net. 

Bubble nets are exactly what they sound like: nets made of bubbles that whales use to confuse krill and small shrimp, making them easier to catch. The whales then swim through the bubble net, scooping up as much as they can eat. 

While humpback whales do spend a lot of time in that area to feed, situations like these are practically unheard of. 

After the experience, Packard and Mayo said that even though it had been scary at the moment, they were going to get back out there as soon as Packard had finished healing.

In both of these cases, it was simply an unfortunate coincidence that someone was in the path of a whale. As long as people continue to be respectful and keep a safe distance from whales, there is no reason to expect such incidents to happen again.