Whale covered in plastic bags approaches fisherman for help

The best of humanity met the worst of humanity in an Australian harbor recently.

A fisherman was doing his thing in the harbor when a whale covered in human detritus, including many plastic bags, calmly approached his boat. “It seemed like the whale was asking for help,” the video’s description reads. “So he grabbed the stuff off of the whale.”

The fisherman reported that the whale “was really inquisitive, sort of taking its eye out of the water and looking at us…it didn’t seem distressed at all.”

It’s yet another reminder of how gentle and wondrous these giant creatures can be—and how poorly we human beings treat them, their fellow denizens of the oceans, and the oceans themselves.

Photo via eGuide Travel/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)