When Daniel Cook decided to fly his drone over the waves at Seven Mile Beach near Lennox Head, he expected to film surfers and hopefully a few dolphins. What he got, though, was something way better: a pair of whales surfing.
The minke whales, which are estimated to be in the 25-foot range, were hunting for fish and using a very particular method. “I figured out that they were waiting for the swell to come through,” Cook told Australia’s 9News, “and they just kind of rocketed through the massive bait balls taking massive gulps of fish as they came past… You never even think of seeing something like that. Unbelievable.”
According to Wayne Philips, the Head of Marine Science at SeaWorld, the sight was an extraordinarily rare one. “Although it’s not rare for minkes to be feeding on bait balls of small fish like that,” he said, “to surf into that bait ball is just amazing.”
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