White Fluke Humpback Whale Underwater Footage

The afternoon was a rather remarkable tour as our first sighting was of a stunning Humpback Whale who had a white fluke. A big tail lob was observed as he was making his way towards a female and trying to deter a challenger who was also approaching at the same time. The challenger was also a special whale as old scarring on the fluke indicated he was an Orca attack survivor with a rounded fluke where the Orca teeth had caused damage. The most remarkable whale in this pod though was the female who was pec slapping away to call in the boys and attract their attention. Observing a large wound on her side we could also see the faint oil slick being left behind and scent of blubber on the waters surface. She had survived a very damaging vessel strike with the wound being no more then one to two weeks old and very large. It was incredible to see her acting normally and seeming to be in good spirits as the boys arrived and competed for her attention. Approaching our vessel we stood by for an opportunity to document these three incredible whales as Arry did a great job of capturing the GoPro footage you will see in the images below. The impact of the vessels hull had caused a massive indentation and wound which was healing and thankfully the rest of her body looked strong with no further injury. Perhaps she had been resting at the surface or just mistimed her surfacing as a vessel moved past, as she was only a young whale we can see these individuals sometimes makings errors when moving around vessel traffic. Although the injury is severe we could already see the healing process beginning as the power of blubber was discarding the dead skin and regenerating new protective blubber to the area. It will take much time but as the healing process continues the area will fill out a little and the body contour will return, but there will always be a remaining indentation to indicate this Humpback is a vessel strike survivor. The blubber is not only brilliant at regeneration and healing, but it also seems to prevent infection extremely well which is vital for the healing process. Wounds that would usually cause terrestrial animals to succumb to their injuries do not appear to cause the same problems for the incredible blubber healing process our marine mammals have, it is very much a super power! #JoinThePod #WhaleWatchWesternAustralia #WhaleWatchQueensland #WhalesGoldCoast #BremerBayKillerWhale #thelanguageofthewhales 📍: #Augusta | Australia's South West 📸: Whale Watch Western Australia | #WAtheDreamState 🐳WA Tours➡️ https://whalewatchwesternaustralia.com 🐳QLD Tours➡️ https://whalewatchqueensland.com