Jogger stopped in tracks as humpback whale nearly storms beach
By Pete Thomas
A woman jogging on the beach in Pacifica, Calif., was astonished to see a humpback whale swimming straight toward her through the surf, seemingly intent on beaching itself.
“Whoa, stay back, buddy!,” Roberta Gamble said to the whale, while videotaping the rare encounter on Monday morning.
Humpback whales were feeding beyond the surf zone, but this whale had chased a school of anchovies almost onto the shore. It opens wide to gulp the bait fish, directly in front of Gamble, about 5 seconds into the video.
“Oh dear,” she says in the short clip, which on Thursday began circulating on whale-themed Facebook pages.
“Although humpbacks have at times been observed lunge-feeding just outside the surf zone, it is extraordinarily rare to catch one with its belly actually on the sand,” whale researcher Alisa Schulman-Janiger posted on the public group, Cetal Fauna. “I’ve witnessed humpbacks feeding close to shore here, but always just outside the surf – never this close!”