Diver Gets Into Tug of War With Octopus Over GoPro Camera
A young diver got into a quarrel with an octopus after it stole his GoPro camera and he was forced to seek assistance so he could retrieve the action cam.
15-year-old Jesse Loffel was filming the octopus from a safe distance off the coast of New South Wales, Australia when the mollusk grabbed the GoPro and made off with it.
“It slowly reached out a tentacle and grabbed the selfie stick, pulling the camera in. A tug of war ensued and the octopus won,” Karen Johnson, the boy’s mother, tells Yahoo News Australia.
Loffel approached nearby photographer Maree Clout, 52, who was also in the water. She explains that the teenager asked for help.
“I had all sorts of dilemmas go through my mind. I asked him what was wrong and his reply was ‘An octopus took my camera’,” she writes on Instagram.
“He took us to where he last saw his camera and sure enough there was the eight-armed ‘robber’ with each of them tightly wrapped around the GoPro.”
Clout dived down to retrieve the camera but found the octopus “really didn’t want to let it go.”
“I had no choice to lift the GoPro up with it on it,” she says. “Man, he was heavy. I wiggled the camera sideways a few times and he reluctantly let go.”
Clout was assisted by Pary Vlandis, who operates All Things Jervis Bay and filmed the GoPro being extracted from the determined octopus.
Loffel’s mother thanked them both on social media. “Haha thanks soooo much for rescuing Jesse’s camera,” writes Johnson.
“There was no way we could get it off that octopus, we have 30 mins of suckers which is fascinating to watch.”
Others hailed the “amazing” footage and praised the intelligence of octopuses.
“That is brilliant! I can just picture his home with a GoPro garden instead of a shell garden,” writes one person.
Octopuses are magnificent creatures and display complex behaviors, Last year PetaPixel reported on octopuses hurling shells at each other and a diver who got a “hug” from one.
