{"id":170691,"date":"2025-09-26T15:58:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T15:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/170691\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T15:58:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T15:58:17","slug":"leeman-humpback-rescue-fisher-spots-entangled-whale-near-beagle-islands-sparking-huge-local-rescue-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/170691\/","title":{"rendered":"Leeman Humpback Rescue: Fisher spots entangled whale near Beagle Islands sparking huge local rescue effort"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">A humpback whale was spotted off the coast of Leeman struggling to surface, tangled in rope, triggering a frantic local rescue and race against time to save it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">On September 24 a local fisher spotted a humpback whale in serious trouble and reported the sighting at around 1.30pm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Parks and Wildlife Service staff, supported by the Fisheries WA team from Jurien Bay, mobilised within an hour and raced towards where the whale had been spotted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">By 4pm, the crew located the whale, anchored to the seabed and fighting to breathe. Ropes were wound tightly around its tail, fluke, pectoral fin, and even threaded through its mouth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">The entanglement was complex and the the team were racing against the fading light, but decided on a course of action to try and free the whale without harming it.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/5134b07f778ffb23487a9392bbed61ecc4228103.jpg\" alt=\"The team began by cutting key lines to ease the pressure on the whale, helping it to regain buoyancy. \" class=\"css-16r7l45-StyledImage en5ut4d0\"\/>Camera IconThe team began by cutting key lines to ease the pressure on the whale, helping it to regain buoyancy.  Credit: Facebook<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">The team began by cutting key lines to ease the pressure on the whale, helping it to regain buoyancy. After securing a tracker and safety line, they carefully removed the remaining rope from its mouth, freeing the whale just before sunset.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">In a video of the distressed whale filmed by a member of the public, a man can be heard saying: \u201cIs that a float down there? May be by his other pectoral fin there\u2019s a float, I think.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cSee the orange rope tangled around his tail there. He just can\u2019t lift his tail. Poor guy, that lobster trap is probably trapped on the bottom because these things are pretty strong. Hang on mate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/45c8548cc4c08fd0159ca4872f7d1497c58205dd.jpg\" alt=\"After securing a tracker and safety line, they carefully removed the remaining rope from its mouth, freeing the whale just before sunset.\" class=\"css-16r7l45-StyledImage en5ut4d0\"\/>Camera IconAfter securing a tracker and safety line, they carefully removed the remaining rope from its mouth, freeing the whale just before sunset. Credit: Facebook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A humpback whale was spotted off the coast of Leeman struggling to surface, tangled in rope, triggering a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1313,64,63,75,44,128,45,338],"class_list":["post-170691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animals","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-news","tag-science","tag-wa-news","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}