Seal throws octopus at kayaker in wild viral video you need to see to believe
A kayaker in New Zealand got a major surprise courtesy of a mischievous seal while he was out on the open water.
Remarkable GoPro footage captured off the coast of Kaikoura on New Zealand’s South Island shows Kyle Mulinder getting hit in the face by an octopus after a seal catapulted it at him.
“We were just sitting out in the middle of the ocean and then this huge male seal appeared with an octopus and he was thrashing him about for ages,” Mulinder tells Yahoo. He says the fight disappeared under water before the pair reappeared by his side. The video then shows the seal breaching the water’s surface, with the octopus in his mouth, before flicking its neck and wrapping the live octopus around Mulinder’s face. “He thrashed it in mid fight and my face happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he recalls.
A stunned Mulinder can be seen wincing from the impact before the two animals disappear into the water.
“I was like ‘Mate, what just happened?’ It was weird because it happened so fast but I could feel all the hard parts of the octopus on my face like ‘dum dum dum,’” he says.
At the end of the clip, Mulinder can be heard letting out a defiant roar amid a raucous response from his peers. The group, content creators for GoPro, were out kayaking to test the company’s latest model Hero7 in the picturesque area when they captured the amazing moment.
“Its famous for its wildlife – albatross and seals and things like that… but that s*** does not happen everyday!”
Mulinder revealed that despite the seal’s apparent dominance in the scrap, the octopus came out victor. He said the octopus clung to the end of his kayak after the fight and Mulinder only managed to release it with help from a fellow kayaker.
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