Underwater photographers and free divers rescued a ray tangled in fishing rope \u2013 while being circled by sharks.<\/p>\n
The mobula ray was trapped 18m below the surface, completely wrapped in rope from a shark fisherman\u2019s buoy.<\/p>\n
Working in shifts, the team carefully cut away the line and freed the distressed animal while documenting the entire rescue, off Baja California, Mexico.<\/p>\n
Underwater photographers and free divers saved a mobula ray wrapped in rope from a shark fisherman\u2019s buoy. Andre Smits \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
The ray was trapped 18m below the surface. Andre Smits \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
After swimming away, the injured ray unexpectedly returned, circling the divers in what they described as a \u201cthank you\u201d moment.<\/p>\n
Andre Smits, 35, an underwater photographer, was part of the ocean safari group who spotted the ray and helped with the rescue on June 16, 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went to one of the shark fishermen\u2019s buoys because we didn\u2019t find any wildlife to interact with that day,\u201d Smits, 35, said.<\/p>\n
The team cut away the line and freed the animal. Andre Smits \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guide jumped in to check the line, popped his head up right away, and said, \u2018Guys, I need your help. There\u2019s something stuck in the line,’\u201d Andre Smits, an underwater photographer part of the group that helped, said. Andre Smits \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guide jumped in to check the line, popped his head up right away, and said, \u2018Guys, I need your help. There\u2019s something stuck in the line.’\u201d<\/p>\n
The team found at least three silky sharks circling the scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we were doing this whole rescue, at least three sharks were swimming around, and the sharks were ready to attack as soon as she almost passed away,\u201d Smits said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we were doing this whole rescue, at least three sharks were swimming around, and the sharks were ready to attack as soon as she almost passed away,\u201d Smits said. Andre Smits \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
The rescue required coordination between seven divers. Andre Smits \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
\u201cSharks love it when animals are dead. They feed on it. Luckily, she wasn\u2019t attacked yet, but we always kept an eye on the sharks to see how interested they were.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rescue required careful coordination among seven divers.<\/p>\n
A free-diving trainer descended to cut the rope below the ray, allowing the team to pull the animal closer to the surface.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was completely entangled. The rope was going around almost every part of the ray,\u201d Smits said. Andre Smits \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was completely entangled. The rope was going around almost every part of the ray,\u201d Smits, based in Eindhoven, Netherlands, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe animal was in freak mode, starting to swim around to try to get free, but then it understood that it was stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team worked together to hold the distressed ray while carefully cutting away the entangling rope with knives.<\/p>\n
The injured ray unexpectedly returned after swimming free, circling the divers in a \u201cthank you\u201d moment. Andre Smits \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try to safely cut pieces of the rope around the face, and it swims away again, but we pull it back towards us,\u201d Smits said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the whole team, we tried to hold the animal close while they switched with the knife and tried to safely cut around the rope so we don\u2019t hit the animal.<\/p>\n
\u201cPulling up the animal was really not an easy task \u2013 we really needed some muscles to keep the line up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe line is very sharp, and if the animal starts swimming, you really have to release the rope, otherwise, it could cut you completely open.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ray was injured but survived.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe beautiful thing was we cut her free, we released her, and she swam away about 30m, and then it felt like she decided to come back,\u201d Smits said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe really swam back to us and did a \u2018thank you\u2019 circle. She came right between us to our faces, almost giving us a grateful hug.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Underwater photographers and free divers rescued a ray tangled in fishing rope \u2013 while being circled by sharks.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1147,1861,20430,79,197312,9460,201,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-411240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-fishing","10":"tag-rescue","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-scuba-divers","13":"tag-sharks","14":"tag-wildlife","15":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}