posted January 10, 2008 12:48 PM         

A female humpback whale had become entangled in a spider web of crab
traps and lines.

She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her
to struggle to stay afloat.
She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body,
her tail, her torso, a line
Tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Faralon Islands (outside the
Golden Gate) and radioed for help.

Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was
So bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her;
a very dangerous proposition.
One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous
circles.
She then came back to each diver, one at a time, nudged them, and
Pushed gently, thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly
beautiful experience of their lives.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following
him the whole time, and he will never be the same.....

May you, and all those you love,be so fortunate... To be surrounded
by people
Who will help you get untangled
From the things that are binding you.
And, may you always know the joy
Of giving and receiving gratitude.

posted January 10, 2008 07:53 PM         

The story itself of humans risking their lives to save the whale and affectinate thank you gesture of the whale brought tears to my eyes, but watching the video I just bawled after learning that there were seals leaping in and out of the water around the whale who was crying out for help as if in sympathy for their fellow marine creature's distress.

According to local news coverage, it all began on Sunday, December 11, 2005, when a fisherman spotted a 50-ton humpback whale tangled up in crab trap lines off the Marin County coast in northern California. His call for help was answered by the Marin Marine Mammal Center, which dispatched a group of Coast Guard divers and whale experts to the site near the Farallon Islands to free the animal.
The rescue operation was both difficult and dangerous. Crew members found the whale entwined in some 20 ropes, each 240 feet long and wrapped so tight they were slicing into its flesh. The lines had to be cut by hand, which required diving perilously close to the whale and its powerful tail. It took about an hour, and no one was injured.

In interviews with reporters, some of the divers remarked on the whale's "affectionate" behavior. One said the creature watched and seemed to wink at him as he was cutting a line that went through its mouth. Once freed, the whale began circling and approached the divers one by one to "nuzzle" them. "You hate to anthropomorphize too much," Mick Menigoz told the San Francisco Chronicle, "but the whale was doing little dives and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it. I don't know for sure what it was thinking, but it's something that I will always remember. It was just too cool."

Picture of the ensnared whale taken by the fishermen who spotted the whale and called ashore for rescue help

Video of the rescue event taken by the fishermen

posted January 13, 2008 09:21 AM         

I wish the same for you