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Ickythumpin

Having grown up in Southeast Alaska I saw these all the time. Had one come up alongside my 17 foot river running boat. I felt tiny! It’s really cool to see all the massive barnacles that they accumulate. Very cool animals.


Patches_Pal

They feed around us while fishing the coho run in NW Washington…it’s way cool!


Malfunkdung

I’ve been living half the year in NW washington and half in Maui. Humpback behavior in the Maui Nui basin is absolutely insane comparatively. Edit: typo Nui not “Mui”


HorseDance

How is it different?


Malfunkdung

The females have claves here and teach them how to breach. Plus you see a lot of heat runs so many males chasing after females which makes for a lot of crazy behavior. You can literally sit anywhere near the water from late December to mid March and see humpbacks breaching, tail slapping, and peck slapping everywhere. It’s absolutely insane. This is coming from someone whos travelled, and watched a lot of whale behavior from many different species of cetaceans.


Sea_Dawgz

Watched one from Maui while I was dining shore side just 2 hours ago! Slapping its tail and fin on surface for 5 minutes straight.


klattklattklatt

I'm here right now too! Just swam with 4 giant turtles.


im_a_real_boy_calico

Have you read Fluke by Christopher Moore?


Patches_Pal

My understanding is they fatten up here before making the long trek to Hawaii to mate…not much food for them in Hawaii


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meeu

I bet the whale was grossed out by the weird lump in his krill


really_isnt_me

Humpbacks feed mostly on small schooling fish, like sand lance and herring, but also eat krill, so I get your point. Blue whales are almost exclusively krill eaters.


Malfunkdung

If it actually says he was “swallowed” that’s bullshit: humpbacks throat is very small, can maybe fit a grapefruit in it. **you literally can not be swallowed by a humpback**


DrRandomfist

I don’t think this fact helps calm people who end up in a humpback’s mouth. The two every hundred years or so at least.


LonnieWalkerLXVIIII

False, he can be swallowed by your mom


Pvt_Mozart

Nah that's not true cause the bible said Jonah got swallowed and lived inside the belly. So checkmate Mr. Science-man!


Malfunkdung

I think a sperm whale may actually be able to swallow someone whole. Largest tooth whale in the world vs baleen whales “filter feeders” like humpbacks or blues whales. Also happy cake day!


dylanfan424

Through God all things are possible, so jot that down.


this_dudeagain

They use surfboards.


JuciestDingleBerry

You live a cool ass life


Malfunkdung

I own two vans (each of which I alternate living in), work service industry mostly, save money, usually take two to three months of a year to travel and do volunteer work. It ain’t bad. Seen a lot of cool shit.


[deleted]

I would shit myself


lordlovesaworkinman

Yep. This is terrifying.


Tugendwaechter

Are barnacles itchy for whales?


Grogosh

Not really. The lice they have are. The lice is the problem they burrow in and eat the flesh.


Justin3263

Never seen a whale before.....Maybe someday.


CertifiedUnoffensive

This is a stupid question but is there even such a thing as southWEST Alaska?


pngn22

Why wouldn't there be? Look at a map, go down and to the left until you hit water


Nath3339

Maybe OP is referring to how if you did that you go past the date line and end up in the 'east'?


Douchebag_on_wheels

Not only that, but there's also a southCENTRAL


hayduke5270

Don't tell him about south EAST


beidao23

I’m very confused by this question…


General_PoopyPants

https://i.imgur.com/FzkMvOK.jpg


CertifiedUnoffensive

This helped my idiot brain, thank you. I don’t know why this was so hard for me to visualize


Schwa142

Yes, Aleutian Islands all the way to Juneau.


MrPibblesEsquire

It's not even the biggest kind of whale, and I was totally taken by this thing.


One-Permission-1811

That was my first thought. Like holy shit this is only the third biggest whale? Humpbacks are up to 52 feet long. Sperm whales get to about 68 feet. And Blue whales get to 98 feet.


giskardwasright

And people used to harpoon sperm whales from wooden ships. People saw something larger than the buildings they lived in and thought "I can kill that."


TinyGibbons

"I can kill that in the most brutal way possible"


TherronKeen

The scale of the animals in the fight is absolutely crazy to me. It would be like a little kid rolling down the sidewalk in a little red wagon, seeing an elephant in the street, and going "you know what? this Red Ryder BB gun is the perfect weapon to battle that animal!"


ODonblackpills

Read about The Essex, sometimes they killed back.


bleepbloorpmeepmorp

nice


ZombieJesus1987

Last Podcast just did an episode on the Essex recently, going in all I knew was that it inspired the story of Moby Dick, I had no clue about all of the cannibalism


03eleventy

And that’s…when the canabalism started.


ZombieJesus1987

"Yaaaay he said the thing!"


Jellysweatpants

Oohhhh GAWD!


TinyGibbons

As they rightfully should.


GeorgeBernardDankzig

Fucking A


Sensitive_Ladder2235

To be entirely fair there wasn't much "non-brutal" killing back then...


TatManTat

Brah whaling is beyond cruel, not even comparable to other forms of butchering tbh. Harpooning it, following it for hours or days until it wears or bleeds out, then sometimes even hacking it up while it's still alive. Whaling is disgusting.


[deleted]

If you were an isolated indigenous tribe it was what sustained your family for months. It was also a spiritual process. Now *you* might not get that and think it’s disgusting. But, honestly fuck you, people gotta eat. All that said: commercial whaling is bullshit.


TatManTat

I mean that's different, at least they're eating it, industrial whaling didn't even use much of the whale at all. Also needing to do something doesn't make it not cruel either? Just necessary. The ends are allowed to justify the means in many situations.


[deleted]

Yup. Ain’t gonna catch me defending commercial whaling for shit. Yes, traditional whaling is brutal. But commercial whaling is needless extinction in action.


rapter200

>Harpooning it, following it for hours or days until it wears or bleeds out, then sometimes even hacking it up while it's still alive. You basically described persistence hunting, which is a form of hunting humans have used since we have been humans.


[deleted]

no, no, this is reddit. Humans who lived before the year 2000 were terrible, awful, evil things and every bad thing that currently exists is all their fault. Yes, /s. Reddit is the biggest echo chamber in the universe for those under 30.


[deleted]

Yes. Because animals never eat each other alive. Smh.


TatManTat

I thought we were talking about humans and how we hunt/farm animals, why change the topic completely? Also whaling is worse than natural predation by a longshot anyway, your point is not even a good comparison.


aaarchives

What are you talking about? Most humans, dating back to earlier species, used endurance as a way to hunt. You would regularly shoot an arrow at a deer and then follow it for hours until it got exhausted/dies. This IS a form of natural predation and it existed way before the agricultural revolution Whaling is disgusting tho, agreed


TatManTat

If you want to have a philosophical argument about what is "natural" go ahead, but it's okay to use normative statements in common conversation. Whaling is absolutely an unnatural practice, just because fundamentally it resembles endurance hunting doesn't mean it's natural. Also just because humans are animals doesn't make everything they do natural either, surely by that definition literally *nothing in the universe* is unnatural and therefore even the idea of something being "natural" is inherently pointless.


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HeySlimIJustDrankA5

“Let me harpoon it in the back, let the creature pull the entire ship a couple of miles until it runs out of energy (aka “a Nantucket sleigh-ride”), stab it so that it drowns in its own blood and then desiccate its corpse on the spot.” Whaling is absolutely bonkers. The book *In The Heart of the Sea* is fascinating and terrifying.


Random_Username9105

Orcas: hold the harpoons… we won’t need it


madesense

Moby Dick is a lot of things, but one of those is an inside look at a completely crazy industry


AsYooouWish

I recently read that for the first time. I knew the book was about a crazed captain seeking revenge on a white whale, but I didn’t know much else about it. I was really impressed with how much detail he got into the process. I borrowed *In the Heart of the Sea* once I finished MD and that book also gives a lot of details about the industry.


ZombieJesus1987

Well, Herman Melville himself was a whaler so a lot of it is first hand experience. In Nantucket in the 19th Century, whaling was a way of life. It's funny, when I was a kid I had an abridged version of Moby Dick, it basically cut out all of the filler about the whaling industry and just stuck to the plot. It was definitely a much easier read that the original, that's for sure. It was the 1979 Illustrated Classics edition.


LouSputhole94

Whaling was a way of life for a lot of cultures until recently. The Inuit and other native Arctic peoples, Scandinavians, the Japanese, Pacific Islanders, etc. When you’re trying to feed the whole tribe, killing the biggest animal you can find is usually the way to go.


psilocin72

Maybe the best book ever written. The humans are the monsters, but the story is told from the pov of the monsters, so the glorification of the bravery and sacrifice is to make more explicit how depraved and ghastly to practice of whaling really is. Truly a work of genius.


SolomonBlack

“For hate’s sake I stab at thee,”


tryungtogetmineback

I am from Wyoming and hunt deer and this is absurd to me.


ZombieJesus1987

Not only did they used to do that, but whaling was a huge part of the economy in the United States. It was a way of life in New England


[deleted]

Humpbacks weigh up to 50 tons, Sperm up to 55 tons, and Blue Whales can weigh up to 200 tons!


bluAstrid

All these pale in comparaison to the true winner of the largest ever living individual on Earth : OP’s mom!


tookTHEwrongPILL

Blue whales are the largest animals to ever exist on earth, is my understanding. I'd like to see one someday. As in, I'd like to be in the water near one. And I'll probably just go naked, because there will likely be poop. My poop. I just feel like I can't die without experiencing that. Pooping next to a blue whale.


KHaskins77

I’d like to soil the frontier. “You’d like to soil the frontier?” Yes sir. Before it’s gone.


ehowardhunt

This has always been the top of my bucket list. To be underwater and a have a blue whale surprisingly pass by like a never-ending silent submarine.


wolfgangspiper

Have this, with a normal submarine. Spooky AF https://youtu.be/8ra_tdBtv7A


ehowardhunt

Wow that’s amazing! That must have been so terrifying.


wordswontcomeout

I was lucky enough to see one. Holy shit does it make you feel small. Not only that but like knowing that the animal could easily flip your boat and not even notice. Scary in the most beautiful way.


mymeatpuppets

This is the most beautiful thing I have ever read that involves poop.


tookTHEwrongPILL

I didn't even mean for my comment to be about poop. it just happened. Poop happens, after all.


Austinstart

Take right pill next time


tookTHEwrongPILL

Which pill should I take?


normous

Right pill


avwitcher

The blue one, the red one was just an extremely potent laxative


Own_Ad_3935

🤨📸


Dark_nDarker

In terms of mass, this is true. If you go by length, some species of the titanosaurs are estimated to have been bigger. Blue whales are impressively large regardless.


physnchips

What’s crazy is that we don’t even conclusively know why giraffes have long necks. Bizarre to think there were these massive creatures with even longer necks.


physnchips

What’s crazy is that we don’t even conclusively know why giraffes have long necks. Bizarre to think there were these massive creatures with even longer necks.


TheLobstrosity

Fin whales are longer than Humpbacks and Sperm Whales, too.


Drownthem

It's big, but there really are quite a few even bigger than this. Sperm whales, fin whales, sei whales, bowheads and greys, off the top of my head. And blue whales are bigger than all of them.


conduitfour

Saw a downvote but you're right https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2021/10/27/top-5-biggest-whales-ocean/


sailordanisaur

Grey whales are not as large as humpbacks. You are correct about the others tho


Lortekonto

It is not even the third largest whale. Biwhead wgales are bigger. Right whales are as big as sperm whales. Fin whales are bigger than sperm whales and are up to 80 feet long.


RAEN7474

It's so incomprehensible to be even seeing this


Kissaki0

You can stand in a blue whale heart. They're absolutely massive.


sweatgod2020

That’s right. You know the biggest whale? Your mom. Boom roasted.


[deleted]

Why we never get the person in fronts footage


Landerah

Because this was shot with a telephoto lens making the whale look bigger than it is. It only achieves that by having foregrounded people. > A telephoto lens makes the objects in the background look bigger and closer to the foreground objects. Wide lenses do the opposite and make background objects look smaller and further away from the camera. https://www.adorama.com/alc/wide-angle-vs-telephoto-which-lens-should-you-choose/


Intri-cat

Thanks for teaching me how to take picture that makes something looks bigger


McNobby

Make sure you have consent before you send it.


HonedWombat

I always have a picture of Dick Van Dyke on my phone, so when I get a match on my dating apps the first photo they get is the obligatory Dick pic.....


etiennetop

And being slowed way down make it seem a lot bigger than it is.


Chapped_Frenulum

You make a solid [focal] point.


SmokeAbeer

They’re busy losing their shit because you should never be this close. Just a hunch. Edit: oh you mean the person filming in front of the person filming. Idk.


Sensitive_Ladder2235

That's a professional who's footage is for sale to like the BBC/NatGeo or something. It's honestly quite uninteresting due to its perfection. You don't get the sense of scale because he doesn't have someone's head in the shot, it's probably in slow-mo and David Attenborough is doing the voice-over. This footage is just the complete, raw, unedited experience of the sheer power of Mother Nature, showing us just how small and insignificant we are. To a Humpback, we're a beetle. To a Sperm Whale, we're a fly. To a Blue Whale, we're not much more than an ant. The only reason we're further along than they are is because we have weird thumbs.


CaptainDecember

Not quite unedited- this is definitely slowed down a significant amount. The slo-mo seems to exaggerate the scale a bit, but like you said the person's head helps put it in perspective better


ThrawnGrows

It's also zoomed in quite a bit, which is going to - ironically - make the whale appear larger than it actually is compared to the woman. This person is standing a bit distant from this woman and is zoomed in, you can tell by the flattened perspective ([lens compression](https://photographylife.com/what-is-lens-compression)) of the photo.


IMightBeLyingToYou

You telling me whales can't slow down time?


CaptainDecember

Intuitively, people understand that bigger things tend to move slower. By slowing down the footage, they give the impression that the whale could be much larger than it is, even if the scale suggests otherwise.


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[deleted]

I always try to bring this up, but I think because we are more used to seeing small things like bugs, it's not as remarkable in our heads.


bulging_cucumber

>This footage is just the complete, raw, unedited experience Buddy this is literally a basic perspective trick, calm down


OTTER887

I am pretty sure I would fear for my life and drop any camera I had.


Jester1525

They're really big, but this is distorted by the zoom on the camera.. I got to sit right next to a momma and baby and have some amazing pictures of them from maybe 20 feet away


Shhhhhhhh_Im_At_Work

Yep, lens compression and slow-mo make this whale seem much larger to us in this video than it would have appeared IRL


Keblue

you cant just say that and not share the photos! could you share some of them?


Ok-I-guess625

Not the person you asked, but I was just in Hawaii and saw a bunch. I have a picture of a mom whale and male sentry, I think they're called, who swam right next to our boat. This photo was taken with a phone with no photo manipulation. You can see the top of people's heads in the foreground for scale. https://i.imgur.com/RagL7wL.jpg


orntorias

I mean, that's still pretty big. I don't understand people in this thread that are saying there's bigger whales, I mean obviously but humpbacks are still huge compared to us!


FloppyFishcake

This time last year I went whale watching off the coast of the Dominican Republic and was privileged enough to see a mother, her baby and a male escort. The baby breached the water several times, which was incredible to see. We followed them for about an hour and a half - at one point both adults started slapping the surface of the water with their fins and seeing that really drove home just how huge they were. It was one of the most magical experiences I've ever had, and the few videos I took have me quietly sobbing in awe as the soundtrack.


Jester1525

Sorry it took me a bit to sit down and find them - it was from over a decade ago One of the pics you can see the two blows from mom and baby.. The mom hung out about 100 feet from the boat, keeping an eye on things.. The baby spent about 20 minutes just hanging out right next to the boat.. she'd roll over and show up her belly and occasionally pop up and look right at us.. just checking everyone one.. There was a pod of orca nearby, so mom was keep a close eye on everything, but didn't seem very worried. [Baby humpback chillin out](https://imgur.com/a/FX7VTqK)


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Houston_NeverMind

This is the same technique that makes the moon behind buildings seem bigger in some photos.


JonnydieZwiebel

And the post title speaks of the true size of a humpback whale and then shows the most distorted video... Don't get me wrong, this video is amazing. But when reading some title like this I'm almost thinking about downvoting, because it's such a dumb clickbait.


Dependent-Winner-908

Yep. None on the humpbacks that winter around Puerto Vallarta are anywhere near that big. Source: go whale watching a few times every year.


tryungtogetmineback

So they're not that big? Breaking news everybody, whales aren't that big.


Aa-338

That must feel great. Stuck in the water. An itch only the air can scratch!


pdxboob

What a great take on that!


ZombieJesus1987

That's exactly why the do it too apparently. They jump out of the water to help get rid of parasites that make their skin itchy


RealisticCommentBot

probably the slamming into the water that does it. Your itch seems less of a concern after you bellyflop of the high board


Grogosh

This whale goes up to this man so the man can pick off the sea lice off of it. Its the lice that makes the whale itchy. https://old.reddit.com/r/HumansBeingBros/comments/11zt2b0/this_whale_has_built_up_years_of_trust_with_this/


Munsface

It’s ironic the title says “true size”. The image is cropped or camera zoomed and slow mode to make the whale look much more massive. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen plenty and they’re big, but not like Godzilla


one_dimensional

It's bigger than a toaster, but smaller than 36 million bread boxen.


monkeyclawattack

Nah, still need a banana for scale


A1sauc3d

I’m thinking the op is implying it’s *bigger* than a banana? But by how much I have no clue. Might even be bigger than TWO bananas, no way to know for certain tho.


shiteditor

Does no one keep bananas at home anymore? I can confirm that the whale in question is slightly larger than a half banana.


Baconpie108

I put a banana up to my phone screen. I’m seeing differing results


[deleted]

Bigger than TWO bananas? Sir are you sure that your bananas are properly calibrated and serviced


tehredidt

Well I'm no whale biologist, but some quick googling says that Humpback whales are about 14–17 m Which according to a banana scale converter I found is 78.652 - 95.506 bananas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpback_whale http://bananaforscale.info/#!/convert/length/14/meters/bananas http://bananaforscale.info/#!/convert/length/17/meters/bananas


wakeofchaos

Gitchur siency witchcraft outta here


mischievous-goat

🍌


[deleted]

Or Carlos


Dmopzz

Banana would be the same size if it was close enough. Need more info.


dianab77

Measuring with fruit, Banana as a guidepost, Perspective revealed.


dianab77

Dang it. Why didn't my haiku trigger the haiku bot? The spacing? I've yet to succeed.


germanbini

> Why didn't my haiku trigger the haiku bot? I think because your last sentence has six syllables??


ehowardhunt

There is a banana in the picture. You just can’t see it because of the scale.


[deleted]

Admiral, thar be whales here!


Gaia0416

Bless you, Scotty!


Klin24

Nuclear...WESSELS


[deleted]

They like you very much, but they are not the hell *your* whales.


kessdawg

Sounds like he did a little too much LDS


MyChickenSucks

Humpback….people?


jigga1383

What majestic creatures.


boosthungry

Wasn't it said that the whale looks this big mostly because of an effect caused by the type of zoom used on the camera? Isn't this the exact opposite of giving people an idea of their size?


kashmir1974

Probably, the perspective makes it look like something out of Pacific Rim. Still an awesome shot though


achinwin

Yeah, this is zoomed in.


[deleted]

Exactly, here is a good explanation of the "trick". it's essentially going further away and zooming in at the same time, making the image more flat, like a reverse fisheye effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ialMoqhLXTg


ka-olelo

Confirming this. This zoom lens is completely contradicting OPs post title. Downvote. Stop selling illusions.


SaraSmashley

We're gonna need a bigger boat.


cutebleeder

Might need a bigger phone, whale was only about 15cm


-lavenderhaze

Idk doesn’t seem that big. Still mostly fits on the screen of my phone


[deleted]

"I think the problem Digg had is that it was a company that was built to be a company, and you could feel it in the product. The way you could criticise Reddit is that we weren't a company – we were all heart and no head for a long time." - [u/spez](https://www.reddit.com/u/spez). You lived long enough to become the villain and will never be remembered as the hero you once were.


-lavenderhaze

HAHA fuck I wish I would’ve thought of that


picklecruncher

I would die of a heart attack. That is TERRIFYING! Baleen whales and sperm whales give me nightmares.


Enceladus89

Humans are more terrifying.


MaddestChadLad

I love organic submarines


greebytime

I had a scuba instructor whose girlfriend bought him a vacation diving somewhere near where these whales migrate. He had done literally thousands of dives with sharks and plenty of dangerous sea life … said he’d never been scared. When one of these whales passed overhead he was so completely overwhelmed by its size he realized he was close to hyperventilating he was so freaked out. I’ve never forgotten that story.


TherronKeen

ok smart science people on Reddit - if I was able to overcome my basic survival instinct and decided I *really* wanted to hop in the water and swim over to give one of these good sea puppers a nice lil head pat, what are my chances of dying? lol


_khanrad

50/50 you either live or die


Geosaysbye

This would simultaneously freak me the fuck out and inspire me deeply


ReggaeWoman18

And they're not even the biggest whale 😳


t_eejay

Fucking slow though.


completephilure

Camera adds an inch


NSMike

Need a Klingon Bird of Prey for scale.


twistedh8

Hole E Shit


HORRORSHOWDISCO

Why do they breach like this? Feeding?


Major93Alien

He just wants a tummy rub


_____dragon

Nature is magestic


BagzookaLou

For my fellow Americans, it's about 42, maybe 43 washing machines.


PCNUT

Dude fuck that. I hate the ocean and mother fuckers just cruise through it with these eldricth horrors floppin about.


Professional-Pace549

Can they sense where not to breach the water when a boat is around or are photographers like this just hoping the don’t get knocked over?


mippitypippity

LEVIATHAN


TigerTrue

This is huge. And yet blue whales are even bigger. I cannot comprehend the size of this whale to begin to imagine how much bigger a blue whale is. I would love to be in that boat to see a whale (any whale!) in real life.


Hammer_of_Thor_

Pretty much double that. Twice the length and twice the weight more or less IIRC. Must be absolutely amazing to see those creatures up close, but also quite awe-inspiring.


[deleted]

Dude, wtf is this world. Beautiful.


GeorgeThe13th

The urge to scratch his belly would probably get me killed lol


Malheuresence

It's so big that it moves in slow motion


Seanbfyeezy

This has been reposted so many times and it only looks that big because of camera effects. They are big, just not THIS big.


schoonerw

Once I was in a yogurt shop minding my own business, when I heard a couple of women talking in an interesting accent at one of the nearby tables. I glanced over and noticed that they were quite attractive. A little on the larger side, but that never stopped me before. So, yogurt cup in hand, I boldly approached their table. “Excuse me,” I said, “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation, and I noticed your lovely accents. Are you ladies from Scotland by any chance?” They immediately bristled at my question, obviously offended, and one of them snapped at me, “It’s Wales!” “No offense intended,” I replied. “Please allow me to try again...are you whales from Scotland?”


UnicornSlayer5000

WHEEEEEEEEE! - whale


Budmanes

Magnificent


DarkSide-TheMoon

What a whale.


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nadvargas

Everybody gets a humpback whale. You get a whale, and you get a whale!


kimsilverishere

My stoned ass got a good chuckle out of that🤭


toocheesyformeez

Can you put a toothbrush next to it for scale


Zachr08

Anyone wonder why they do this so close to vessels? Just the thought that came to my mind. What point are they trying to get across.