14 DAY TRIAL // A whale has recently been filmed swimming alongside a group of surfers in Australia, and the footage, available below, is nothing short of amazing.
According to Daily Mail, it was this past Sunday when the surfers came strikingly close to the marine mammal. Thus, they surrounded it, and then spent some time watching it splash around.
The same source tells us that the marine mammal was a southern right whale. Luckily for the surfers, it was in a good mood, and did not attempt to chase away the weird two-legged creatures invading its personal space.
“To be honest they were harassing it a bit. They were so close and it had no room to move. If I was the fish I'd be harassed too. It'd move a bit and they'd back off,” Ian Hansen, who witnessed the scene, said in an interview.
Southern right whales can grow to measure about 14 – 18 meters (roughly 46 – 60 feet) in length, and are known to turn against humans should they happen to feel threatened or annoyed.
Hence, government guidelines in Australia ask that swimmers make sure that they do not come closer than 30 meters (approximately 98.5 feet) to such marine mammals.
Boats and surfers, on the other hand, are required to remain at a distance of about 100 meters (about 328 feet), just to make sure that their presence does not upset the animals.