Rescues for trapped whales
Published: August 5, 2005
RESCUE missions were under way tonight for two whales tangled in ropes in incidents thousands of kilometres apart in West Australian waters.
One of the whales, a humpback calf, was caught in ropes from a mussel farm off the WA coast near Albany, 400km south of Perth, authorities said.
The other whale, an adult humpback, was tangled in ropes attached to a float near Ningaloo Station, 1160km north of Perth.
A specially trained, five-member team from the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) was en route today to rescue the whale calf, trapped near Mistaken Island off Albany.
The operation, headed by team leader Doug Coughran, would involve cutting through the ropes from a boat without causing distress to the calf or its mother, which was swimming nearby, a CALM spokesman said.
“Feeding the calf is going to be an issue so time is of the essence,” the spokesman said.
In a statement, CALM said aerial surveillance of an area near Coral Bay in the state’s northwest was underway to determine the exact location of the tangled adult whale before a rescue was attempted.
Incidents of whales becoming trapped in ropes were infrequent, CALM said.
“For two to be tangled at the same time in two different places is quite a coincidence,” the CALM spokesman said.
A juvenile humpback whale died after becoming entangled in a shark net off the Gold Coast earlier this week.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
If you like this, you'll love Good Animal News:
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: