Rare video of humpback whale leaping from water near Outer Banks landmark stuns viewers
Rare video shows a humpback whale jumping from the water near a North Carolina landmark, stunning social media users.
The whale was spotted just off shore from the Cape Lookout Lighthouse, a tourist attraction on the Outer Banks barrier islands.
A 14-second clip posted to Facebook shows a stretch of water with the iconic black-and-white lighthouse in the background. Suddenly, a whale can be seen jumping out of the ocean, making a big splash as it re-entered the water on Wednesday, Jan. 11.
The sighting was a rare treat, according to Cape Lookout National Seashore, which credited the video to Jan Tugwell.
“You have to be in the right place at the right time and looking in the right direction to spot them,” park rangers wrote on Facebook. “For something so large, they are very difficult to see in the water.”
To get the video, Tugwell said she had to be patient while waiting for one of the massive creatures to push itself out of the water, also called breaching.
“After watching them for almost 90 minutes, we learned that a tail slap meant they were diving to get ready to breach, so we just aimed and filmed,” she wrote on Facebook. “A lot of ‘nothing’ videos and used cell phone battery power to get a few good videos and pictures.”
People couldn’t get enough of the unique footage, which garnered about 4,000 reactions and 282,000 views within about 24 hours of being posted. Hundreds of people also left comments, including: “Seeing this in person would thrill my soul.”
Another Facebook user chimed in with: “They’re so majestic. What an amazing experience!”
Humpback whales are massive creatures, growing up to 80,000 pounds and 60 feet. They are found in oceans throughout the world and are known to migrate up to 5,000 miles from warm to cold areas.
Cape Lookout National Seashore said the whales start to swim past the park around this time each year “as they make their way back to their summering grounds in New England and the Canadian Maritime provinces.”
Though getting a glimpse of them isn’t always easy, “humpback whales are a favorite of whale-watchers, as they can be found close to shore and often display activities near the surface, such as breaching (jumping out of the water) or slapping the surface with their pectoral fins and tails,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote on its website.
Tugwell didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Jan. 13.
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