Humpback whale with a rope wrapped around its tail, similar to the entanglement of a humpback being searched for off the coast of South Australia.
Fishermen in South Australia were asked to join a sea-and-air search for a humpback whale that became entangled in the waters off neighboring Victoria state earlier this month.
A rope appears to be wrapped around the marine mammal’s tail, which could prove fatal if either the animal or human rescuers can’t remove it.
“Essentially it would cut through the skin and muscle,” said Environment Department spokeswoman Deb Kelly.
She told reporters that the department is ready to dispatch eight rangers to aid the whale if it can be sighted again.
“The ocean's a very big place so it's finding that balance between genuinely wanting to do what we can and going on a futile exercise of looking in a massive ocean for a whale,” Kelly added.
Sixteen people, a plane and three boats searched for the whale in an effort to attach a satellite transmitter to the rope to keep track of the humpback.
Photo: NOAA