An Australian photographer has captured a rare moment of animal communion with a shot of a seal surfing a humpback whale off the New South Wales coast.
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Photographer Robyn Malcolm captures extraordinary images of a whale feeding frenzy and a seal joining in.
Stevie, the surfing seal, stunned onlookers when he appeared riding the waves on top of a passing whale.
Talking to The Sydney Morning Herald, Malcolm confirmed that the viral image had not been doctored…
Humpbacks are baleen whales, which means they don’t have teeth.
Whale expert Geoff Ross told Daily Mail Australia called the sight extremely unusual, saying that he knew of only one other instance where a seal rode on a whale.
“We’d seen some amazing whales coming out of the water, everything was happening so quickly”, Malcolm told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“Last Saturday we were ‘mugged” by the biggest group of humpbacks I have ever seen, who were happy to play with us for a while’.
She swears it’s not altered because she doesn’t know how to use Photoshop. “And I still have it on the camera to prove it”, he added.
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The September-October period is prime whale-watching season in Eden and Narooma, where there is often an upwelling of humpbacks feeding and resting as they make their way back to Antarctica.
