A humpback whale has been freed after being entangled in ropes in Sydney Harbour. Jessica Fox, the second vice-president of volunteer organisation Orrca, confirmed the rescue late on Friday morning.
The whale was spotted about 1pm on Thursday by a tour group, who alerted Orrca.
At 9.30am on Friday, the mammal was between Middle Head and North Head, according to a video posted to Orrca’s Facebook page.
“The entanglement is ropes and buoys attached to the tail of the whale,” the video said at the time.
The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service and Maritime NSW vessels were on site monitoring the whale and enforcing an exclusion zone, a spokesperson for the former had said.
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The large whale disentanglement team was dispatched to assist in freeing the animal.
Large orange buoys were attached to the entanglement to slow the whale and to make sighting the animal easier, according to the Orrca video, which added that the creature had been “going in circles in Sydney Harbour this morning, making some erratic directional changes.”
A GPS tracker was reportedly attached to the whale on Thursday when rescue efforts were paused overnight. However the tracker detached, and the whale had to be re-located again on Friday morning.
More details soon …
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