A rag-tag group of mates in WA’s north has gone viral over their improvised rescue of a trapped galah.<\/p>\n
Local sailor Henry Mickle, his partner, Ellie Gillett, friend, Andre, and gardener, Jye, spotted the unfolding drama in an 8-metre electrical pole outside their home in Exmouth, 1,230km north of Perth.<\/p>\n
“I wasn’t sure what was going on, there was a bit of a rustling noise going on in there and we’ve looked through the gap and there’s a galah stuck in the post and trying to get out,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Pink and grey galahs are native to most of Australia. (ABC News: Amelia Searson)<\/p>\n
The now-viral video of the rescue features colourful commentary as the crew makes a plan.<\/p>\n
“Mate, how have you managed that?” Mr Mickle says to the galah.<\/p>\n
The team contacted the local fire brigade and animal experts for advice.<\/p>\n
“But they were out of town, so they couldn’t help us,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So, we had to take matters into our own hands.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mr Mickle said it took about an hour to successfully complete the rescue. (Supplied: Henry Mickle)<\/p>\n
Mr Mickle also contacted Horizon Power, who said it would cost $150 for the rescue.<\/p>\n
But by the time the electricity authority arrived, the team’s creativity had already freed the galah.<\/p>\n
Channelling action hero MacGyver, Mr Mickle and crew used a length of PVC pipe found underneath their home, line from a speargun and fishing sinkers to create an improvised mechanism to help the caught cockatoo.<\/p>\n
“We were looking around the house, thinking about dropping a golf ball on a rope down,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Then we couldn’t find a golf ball, so we had to use whatever we had.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mr Mickle says years of sailing have given him an ability to solve problems on the fly. (Supplied: Henry Mickle)<\/p>\n
It took some deft teamwork to undertake the rescue.<\/p>\n
“My mate was halfway up the post on a ladder \u2014 Jye, the groundsman, was sort of supporting it, and it was wobbling around, and we’ve managed on the second shot to drop it down,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I think they’re a smart bird \u2014 he just jumped on the sinkers and it was like an elevator straight to the top.”<\/p>\n
Mr Mickle said it was “quite amazing” as the galah emerged with a massive plume of dust.<\/p>\n
“He looked pretty chuffed,” Mr Mickle said.<\/p>\n
“But he definitely wasn’t very vocal, he was pretty shook.”<\/p>\n
Having lived on a sailboat and circumnavigated “half the world”, Mr Mickle said he was used to coming up with creative solutions.<\/p>\n
“I’m getting pretty good at the MacGyver-ing, out there by myself, and I think up all these creative ways of solving problems,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1970s TV character MacGyver, played by Richard Dean, is known for improvising life-saving devices to save the day. (Supplied: Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n
Since being posted online, the rescue has racked up more than 80,000 views.<\/p>\n
While Mr Mickle said there had been a “lot of speculation” on the rescue methods involved, it was “funny” to see the huge reaction.<\/p>\n
“I was just laughing at everyone’s reaction to it,” he said.<\/p>\n
“There’s so much going on out there in the world and a galah gets the limelight, so that’s pretty cool.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rag-tag group of mates in WA’s north has gone viral over their improvised rescue of a trapped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[81422,38071,82257,82258,22588,17762,90,224,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-186766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal-rescue","9":"tag-exmouth","10":"tag-galah","11":"tag-macgyver","12":"tag-mates","13":"tag-online-media","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-social-media","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom","19":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}