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.
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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.