Recently, Bertie Gregory, a National Geographic Explorer and host of Animals Up Close on Disney+, observed a remarkable attempt by two humpback whales to protect a seal under attack by a pod of orcas in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea.

National Geographic reports that Gregory and his crew had traveled across the Drake Passage that separates South America from the southernmost continent to film a rare orca population called B1. Known for their unique strategy of creating waves that knock seals off pieces of ice, these genetically distinct Antarctic orcas, likely number only around a hundred.

Gregory and his crew of filmmakers and scientists began following a small pod of B1s hunting seals in the driving snow. Soon, the pod zeroed in on their prey—a Weddell seal lying smack-dab in the middle of a large piece of ice.

With an aerial drone, the crew watched as the orcas disintegrated the seal’s icy platform from below. It worked, forcing the seal into the water, where the pod then spent several minutes tiring the animal out.

“Then, all of a sudden, two humpback whales just turn up,” says Gregory. “They do this amazing trumpeting noise [that’s] so loud, it reverberates in the hull of the boat, like an elephant trumpeting.”

In this instance, the humpbacks were too late to intervene on the seal’s behalf, but between their unmistakable trumpeting and decision to swim right into the orca pod, Gregory believes the pair were trying to mess up the orca’s hunt and even protect the seal.

Leigh Hickmott, a whale biologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and Gregory’s collaborator on a project to study B1s, agrees.

“I think it shows very clear signs of altruism,” Hickmott says. 

The actions of the “hero” humpbacks was unusual but hardly unprecedented. Five years ago, we posted about an incident where biologist Nan Hauser was protected by a humpback whale when approached by a large tiger shark, while snorkeling in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. 

Likewise, Mother Nature Network reports of similar intentional rescues:  Marine ecologist Robert Pitman observed a particularly dramatic example of this behavior back in 2009 while observing a pod of killer whales hunting a Weddell seal trapped on an ice floe off Antarctica. The orcas were able to successfully knock the seal off the ice, and just as they were closing in for the kill, a magnificent humpback whale suddenly rose up out of the water beneath the seal. 

This was no mere accident. In order to better protect the seal, the whale placed it safely on its upturned belly to keep it out of the water. As the seal slipped down the whale’s side, the humpback appeared to use its flippers to carefully help the seal back aboard. Finally, when the coast was clear, the seal was able to safely swim off to another, more secure ice floe.

The BBC has also recorded video of humpback whales attempting to save a baby gray whale which had become separated from its mother and was under attack by a pod of orcas.  

Robert Pittman went on to study the phenomenon. His research analyzed 115 interactions that took place between humpbacks and killer whales, observed by more than 54 individuals — scientists and non-scientists — in ocean locations around the world and spanning 62 years, from 1951 through 2012.

The study found that large and powerful humpback whales, the only whales known to attack orcas, will band together and sometimes travel great distances to interrupt and terminate a killer whale attack, regardless of what type of animal the orca is attacking.

In rare footage, humpback whales attempt to disrupt a killer whale hunt in Antarctica