A Saudi man from the port city of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia has been captured on video riding a whale shark in the Red Sea.
The footage, which has been widely shared on social media networks, shows the man sitting on the edge of a boat with whale sharks swimming around him. The man seems to be choosing which fish to ride. Finally, he jumps straight onto the back of one of them, leans forward, and grabs the shark's dorsal fin to keep balance. The shark did not react to his actions, but stopped.
The other men in the boat kept cheering, with one of them saying, "Careful, it can swallow you".
Netizens, however, condemned the men's actions, with one saying: "Praise be to God, I see we have their names. I hope they will be arrested and held accountable for their reckless behaviour".
"I fully agree, they must be held accountable. One day you get an idiot standing on the back of a turtle while it's laying its eggs, then the next day you get this guy standing on a whale passing peacefully by and terrifying it. They are destroying nature", another one said.
According to the WWF, whale sharks are endangered due to the demand for their meat, fins, and fat.