Rescuers manage to free entangled whale in Sydney Harbour

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A complex rescue operation has succeeded in freeing an entangled whale in Sydney Harbour. It was first sighted in waters between Manly and Camp Cove late yesterday.

Transcript

00:00Well, I'm happy to report that the whale is officially freed, has left the Sydney harbour

00:07and is now swimming out beyond the headlands.

00:10There are no reports or no concerns of ongoing health issues.

00:14It was a young adult, about 10 to 15 metres long.

00:18Not sure if it was a boy or girl and it hasn't been given a name, they don't name the wildlife

00:22here, but this is a great news story.

00:25These entanglement crews were called at about lunchtime yesterday after a whale cruise ship

00:31notified them that this whale had a rope attached to its tail.

00:35So the rope was tangled around the base of its tail and it was a huge rescue operation

00:41that went from yesterday afternoon, but crews were halted by failing light, so they had

00:48to call stops to it at about sunset.

00:51But they had got a tracker on the whale so they were able to start back up in the early

00:55hours again this morning.

00:57It took them many hours from about 7 o'clock this morning and the whale was freed at about

01:0211 o'clock this morning.

01:04Now they say this is because it was young, it was quite lively and obviously quite distressed

01:09that it had this rope around it and there were so many boats around it.

01:13So they spent many hours essentially just trying to tire the whale out.

01:18Now I'm standing here at Little Manly.

01:21It spent a fair amount of the morning around here.

01:24It didn't impact any of the ferries between Manly to Circular Quay in the area that it

01:29was swimming around this morning, but we've heard from some of the rescuers who were involved

01:34in the operation.

01:35They trained their whole lives for moments like these and obviously they were very excited

01:41and happy with the outcome.

01:42It's a great feeling, you know, a lot of work goes into that, you know, a lot of teamwork,

01:46not just National Parks but other agencies involved, so it's really great to get a positive

01:52outcome like that from, you know, a lot of hard work goes into it.

01:54At the end of the day they were able to use purpose-built ropes which have blades at the

02:00end of them to cut this whale free and it is now swimming safely where it should be.

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