On November 4, 2015, a distressed baby humpback whale was noticed in the morning off of Soldier’s Beach in New South Wales, Australia.

Scott Higgins, a local lifeguard, was the first to arrive to the humpback’s rescue on a jet ski and was able to identify that the baby’s tail was caught in what appeared to be a shark net. Scott witnessed the mother nearby and was afraid that he might have been in danger when the protective mother breached and landed just meters from him.

The small humpback who was tangled for at least six hours in the net risked drowning from exhaustion in the struggle to get free of the net. Shark nets in particular have claimed the lives of many animals in Australia and efforts to rid the coast of these nets are widely supported.

A surfing coach named Sandra English commented on the nets by saying, “I don’t like shark nets for this reason. They’re pointless, especially at this beach where we don’t see many sharks here anyway.”

Rescuing animals can be a very dangerous job, and we’re happy that everyone, humpbacks and humans alike made it out of this situation safely!

Thank you to the rescuers!

Read about the success story here and here.