Sunday, March 21, 2010

Baby whale rescue story

Yesterday I began the story about a fishing boat that found a baby whale with a fishing net wrapped around its head. The fishing boat summoned help by cell phone and marine radio and many others gathered near the baby whale in distress and the two parent whales.

One of the dive boats that came to help pulled along side the baby whale and two crew members jumped from the ocean and grabbed onto the net that was being dragged by the baby whale. The frightened whale continued swimming and struggling and dove. One of the men had his mask knocked off and was no longer able to help.

The second man hung on to the end of the 40 meters of net that was being dragged through the water behind the baby whale. This man managed to pull himself forward to reach the whale while he was being dragged through the ocean. With a knife, he cut the net to free the whale.

The baby and two parent whales then swam out to sea, and all of the people on the boats that gathered around the scene applauded the skill and bravery of the men who freed the whale. Congratulations and praise for all involved is certainly well deserved.

The full story can be found at this link to the Guanacaste Jounal article about this amazing rescue. I am using one of my dolphin photos to illustrate this story. Some guests who have stayed in our condo have said that they have seen whales swim by from our balcony.

Today is Sunday, so on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site we have posted new photos. This week we are showing photos of Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, in the Australian Outback.

8 comments:

Rob Siemann said...

Amazing story, and hat down to the 2 guys!!!

Kate said...

That is truly amazing and a feat of courage! I wish that humans would act in a more responsible way for our animals in the wild. Some do so much damage while others bravely try to undo the carelessness of others. Bravo for those brave rescuers!

Lenora Regan - ShootingWithSlinky.blogspot.com said...

One word: "BEAUTIFUL" thanks for sharing!!

Julie ScottsdaleDailyPhoto.com said...

quite a story and it is so nice that it has a happy ending

Judy said...

I'm glad that story had a happy ending. That was a brave man.

brattcat said...

Brave rescuers indeed! But also how brave of the whales to trust the human rescuers. I can imagine most mothers of other species, when seeing a human approach with a knife, might take it the wrong way.

Tash said...

great photo to accompany an awesome story.

Stefan Jansson said...

Very dramatic story.

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