Recently schmoo posted some pictures of a whale being saved in India.When the whale was released it accidentally knocked out two of it's rescuers with a flip of it's tail.
But now we have heard of an amazing rescue of a 50 ton Humpback whale (pictured above) - which thanked each of its rescuers after being freed by them.
The rescue happened just before last Christmas (Dec 2005), when a female Humback was tangled up and weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, and a line tugging in her mouth.
A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, and radioed the 'Marine Mammal Center', an American environmental group, for help.
Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her ... a very dangerous proposition.
One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.
When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles.
She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushing them gently around - she thanked them.
Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.
• San Francisco Chronicle report
• schmoo once rescued three rats stuck in a bin in Kings Cross by putting in a stick so they could climb out and escape. They ran into some nearby bushes - and then came back to say "thank you".
whales - ocean - environment
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