Wow.. Could you imagine being there?

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook and I wanted to share. Such a rare encounter. Specifically observe the interaction between the whale and the humans, it’s recognition of the situation and it’s display after, it demonstrated a surprisingly higher-than-expected level of intelligence.
< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcXU7G6zhjU >

holy shit that guy is fucking brave!
the end is beautiful :)

amazing.. i was listening to leftfield-melt when i watched this… it was practically a religious experience :)
higher than expected level of intelligence … hahahahaha
the whales probably think the same about us…
“those damn humans are so thick.. Cmon they can’t even speak whale”

@Aaron
Yea he was, and he handled himself well, kudos to him.

@Alan
“those damn humans are so thick.. Cmon they can’t even speak whale”
Yea, lol. I agree. I have just never seen it like that before, any other animal, trapped, dying, would have reacted violently, but the whale was able to assess and did not respond as a creature of impulse.
Instead of just swimming away after being freed, like any other animal would have, the whale followed the boat while breaching, then when the boat stopped to watch, did over 40 breaches in one location…. I think the little girls observation was very accurate.

Another animal that can deny its instincts implies a lot. My thought patterns went nuts considering this implication.

I mean, your own dog of 10 years, hurt, trapped, panicked, would still potentially bite at you if you tried to help it….

yeah but that’s a dog. I would place whales and dolphins way higher on the sentient being scale.
you hear stories of dolphins helping people during shipwrecks, shark attacks etc. I don’t think they are doing it because they dislike sharks they are doing it because they understand you are in trouble and way out of your depth (excuse the pun) and genuinely care about another living creature.
elephants are another good example of an animal that can show empathy.
we are just the correct package to get things done. big brains and thumbs.
you can’t build a computer chip with a set of flippers :)
I’m all about killing the myth that we are better than all other animals on the planet.