Photo shows large blue whale swimming under bridge? Fact Check

An aerial photo claims to show a large blue whale and it’s calf while it was swimming under a bridge. Many variants identify the bridge as the Samuel De Champlain Bridge.

FALSE

An example of the photo can be seen below.

One of the largest blue whales ever caught on camera during a helicopter ride today.

SCOOP DE L’HÉLICOPTÈRE TVA CE MATIN. Une baleine et son baleineau passant sous le nouveau pont Samuel-de-Champlain!

Scoop of the vat helicopter this morning. A Whale and its calf passing under the new Samuel De Champlain Bridge!

The photo isn’t real, and it’s been spreading online since July 2019. The image is a composite, meaning the image of the whale has been imposed on the image of the bridge. Despite claims made by earlier variants of this hoax, the bridge in the image isn’t the Samuel De Champlain Bridge.

The Blue Whale is the largest known animal on the planet, and they can grow up to 30 metres in length. However when you compare the image above of the whale compared to the vehicles on the bridge, it is clear that if the image were real, the whale must be around several hundred metres in length, substantially larger than their actual size.

Sponsored Content. Continued below...

A reverse image search reveals the composite is the work of a digital artist named Umut Recber, who included the original images on his website, which you can see below.

He uses a generic image of a whale and its calf, and a stock photo of an unknown bridge (it is neither the new or old Champlain Bridge as claimed by many variants of the image) and stiched the image together using digital manipulation software.

As such, the image isn’t real.