Humpback Whale Rescued Off New Zealand Coast

A young humpback whale was swimming along the coast of New Zealand when it ended up getting trapped in some cray pots and buoy lines. However, the whale is swimming free again, thanks to the efforts by those who rescued it.

According to Global News, a group of fishermen spotted the whale on Sunday morning. The humpback was spotted right near the Wellington Harbour. The whale sighting was reported to the Wellington District Police maritime team.

Constable Kyle Smith, who is from the Wellington Police maritime unit, said that the whale was just a baby. He said that the whale was entangled in the cray pots and the buoy. He added that the humpback whale was having a hard time trying to free itself and it was in a little bit of distress.

Police needed help with freeing the whale, which was only around 29-feet-long. The police ended up getting in touch with a team of whale experts with the New Zealand Department of Conservation.

The team of whale experts were then escorted to the scene by maritime police. According to Daily Mail, the team of experts were taken to the scene on the Lady Elizabeth IV.

The rescue took quite a bit of time to complete, but after several hours of cutting through lines, the whale was finally freed. Smith said that once the lines were cut, the whale just swam back to sea. He added that the humpback seemed pretty happy after it was freed.

The rescue was captured on film. The video of it was uploaded to the New Zealand Police Facebook page, and the clip is just under a minute long. It shows police and wildlife officials working to cutting the whale loose.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=749074501893202

This wasn’t the only weekend sighting of a humpback whale. Over in California, a pair of tandem kayakers had a close encounter with one. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, a humpback whale launched out of the waters of Monterey Bay, California, and it narrowly missed the kayakers.

The whale was just feet away from the kayak, and the force of the impact was so strong that the kayakers ended up in the water. However, they were just find, as they were wearing their life vests, and the other kayakers helped them get back to the shore. One of the kayakers said that they couldn’t believe that they were still alive after the incident occurred.

[Image by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images]