Humpback whale tangled in rope freed in two-day rescue operationSource: Sea World Foundation
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00:00The fly is very close to the drone now, it's down there.
00:02That's it mate, that's the spot, that's the spot.
00:04Yeah that was one for the memory banks, that was huge.
00:08So starting yesterday we've been tracking this animal, another one coming up the NSW coast.
00:13Amazing support from the public, from Orca, from NSW Parks.
00:17We did have the benefit of drone footage, so we have been sort of preparing and making a game plan.
00:23We were out off the coast of Yamba just before dark to stumble across it
00:26and our main objective was to get one of our satellite trackers on it,
00:30which would then enable us to be back out here today and hopefully find it further up the coast.
00:35We were fortunate enough to get out here pretty early this morning
00:38and after inspecting a couple of other animals nearby we located the animal,
00:43made a plan to get one of these big kegs on board to really try and slow that animal down
00:48and also to maintain good vision on that animal as well.
00:51Our process was start at the front and work our way back
00:54and Benno got an amazing cut in on the main part of the rope there.
00:58We slowly ticked through the boxes and we removed that first line,
01:02we got a second line off that was going underneath and right then we actually did the final hurrah
01:08and we got that last bit of rope off that was connected to four floats that it had been dragging the whole time.
01:13Instantly as soon as that last bit of gear came off the animal, the whole swim pattern changed.
01:18It took off at about four to six knots.
01:20So good to see that reaction, see that what we do out here is definitely benefiting these animals
01:26that are coming up here with gear on them.