Humpback whale catches seal off B.C. [Video]

A Vancouver Island nature photographer says he has never seen anything like what his camera captured on a recent whale-watching excursion off Victoria.

Tomis Filipovic, a naturalist and photographer with Eagle Wing Tours, was photographing whales in the Strait of Juan de Fuca on Thursday when a humpback whale surfaced with its mouth wide open to catch a group of small fish.

Caught up in the feeding frenzy was an unsuspecting harbour seal, which Filipovic photographed inside the whale’s mouth as it closed.

“Luckily, a humpback’s throat is only about as wide as a grapefruit, so it can’t take in anything bigger than that,” Filipovic said in an interview Monday. “And it was just sloshing the water around, trying to get this seal out of her mouth.”

The whale, identified as “Zillion” by Filipovic and researchers at the Pacific Whale Watch Association, eventually managed to spit the seal back into …