A distressed humpback whale tangled in a huge mass of fishing equipment has been freed after a major rescue effort off the Gippsland coast in Victoria.
A humpback whale, tangled in around 200 metres of rope and fishing buoys off the Gippsland coast, has been freed almost a week after it was first spotted.
However, it was not seen again until Friday, when it appeared about 4.5 nautical miles from Lake Tyers.Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action incident controller Ellen Dwyer said specialised whale disentanglement crews, including staff from DEECA, Victorian Fisheries Authority and Parks Victoria, attached a telemetry buoy to the whale on Friday, allowing them to track its location.
"Unfortunately, a smaller section of rope could not be removed and was still trailing from the whale." "We place a heavy emphasis on training and crew safety, so it was great to achieve the desired result with everyone returning safely back to shore."A Victoria Police 14.7-metre offshore vessel VP09 and crane was used to lift the heavy fishing tackle out of the water to stop it becoming a hazard to any other vessels or marine life."Normally, police are searching for missing people or vessels in waterways, so this was a completely different kind of search for us," he said.
DEECA is investigating where the fishing equipment came from, and says an initial analysis indicates that it was from an international vessel.
Trapped Fishing Line Rescue Operation Deeca Animal Ocean Department Of Energy Parks Victoria Department Of Fisheries
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