A never - before - captured video show the incredible moment a 22,000 - kilogram ( 48,500 - pound ) humpback heavyweight appears to rescue a snorkeler from a nearby tiger shark .

take in the tender sea off the Cook Islands , the TV demo a big whale pushing Nan Hauser to the control surface using its straits and backtalk . The 63 - year - previous nautical biologist was then tucked under the whale ’s pectoral quintuplet , which , she later realized , belike shielded her from a nearby tiger shark .

A 2nd whale then uses its rear , slapping it through the H2O to keep the shark aside .

hit up to 19 meters ( 62 feet ) in length , humpback whales are proportional to a jitney in size of it . It ’s no wonderment Hauser was left bruised by the clash and say it felt like hour .

" I have spent 28 years submersed with whales , and have never had a whale so tactile and so repetitive on order me on his pass , or paunch , or back , or most of all , trying to tuck me under his huge pectoral fin , " Hauser , president and director of theCenter for Cetacean Research and Conservation , told theIndependent .

When the hulk start push Hauser around , her research squad on a nearby vessel feared for her spirit and give up their drone footage because , as Hauser line , they " did not want to shoot my expiry . "

It ’s not the first time the ocean giant has been observedprotectinga naked metal money . In a 2009 inquiry trip to Antarctica , maritime investigator Robert Pitman recorded a pair of humpback whales protect an stray stamp on an ice ice floe from a cod of killer whale whales . instigate by his reflection , Pittman later went on toexplorethe seemingly selfless behavior march by Megaptera novaeangliae whales . His inquiry analyzed more than 100 fundamental interaction between humpback whale and slayer whales around the world from 1951 - 2012 .

But protecting a human ? That ’s a first , allot to Hauser , who note this is the first documented typesetter’s case where a crookback whale has protected a human from a Panthera tigris shark . She believes this is further proof of giant ' instinct to protect other species and hope the footage will help spur further research .