Fluke of Happy Houdini Confirmed in the catalog

Happy Houdini @148733

This animal was first encountered on 24. November 2025 with rope tightly wrapped around its body just forward of the pectoral fins. The rope was embedded in its skin and encrusted with barnacles and other marine organisms. Subsequent attempts by the South African Whale Disentanglement Network to free the whale of the rope were unsuccessful. Further sightings of the animal were recorded on 5. January 2026 but no mention was made of the entanglement. On 18. January 2026 the animal was seen again and photographs of the body confirmed the absence of the rope and that the animals was swimming and feeding freely!

South Africa · Indian Ocean

Public · Not set by this account.

50 Following 56 Followers
11
Sightings
2
Years
0
Crossings
Last 12 months 9 sightings
  1. N 2025-11: 3 sightings
  2. D 2025-12: 3 sightings
  3. J 2026-01: 3 sightings
  4. F 2026-02: 0 sightings
  5. M 2026-03: 0 sightings
  6. A 2026-04: 0 sightings
  7. M 2026-05: 0 sightings
  8. J 2026-06: 0 sightings
  9. J 2026-07: 0 sightings
  10. A 2026-08: 0 sightings
  11. S 2026-09: 0 sightings
  12. O 2026-10: 0 sightings

Sighting records from Happywhale, published as occurrence data via GBIF. Individual records are licensed CC0 1.0, CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC 4.0, depending on the contributor.

The photographs and fluke identifications behind every sighting are the work of the contributing observers — the citizen scientists, naturalists and operators who logged them, each named in the underlying GBIF occurrence record. Every activity links out to its source encounters on Happywhale. Basemaps © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

Happywhale runs on donations: support Happywhale →

Breach is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, nor endorsed by, Happywhale or GBIF.