Local fishermen save whale trapped in fish net

May 9, 2012

Local fishermen aboard a small crabbing boat in Bodega Bay, Southern California, rescued a gray whale trapped in a fishing net.

Apparently the whale had been trapped for over 2 weeks, until Skipper Mark Anello and his crew noticed some buoys moving across the water in an odd fashion, which quickly caught their attention.

The whale initially fought and struggled as the three man crew pulled up and tried to help free the large whale from the fishing net. Eventually the whale let go as if it seemed that it knew they were there only to help.

According to Anello, the whale could have easily destroyed the boat during the initial rescue. Crabbing boats are not very big, much smaller than a gray whale.

After almost two hours of working on removing the net, they finally succeeded. Using two large poles with hooks at the end, they were able to free the large mammal from the fishing net.

One of the greatest parts of this story is what happened afterwards.

After the whale was free and fisherman saw it to safety, they began driving away only to notice they were being followed.

The whale swam behind the boat for a while, as if it was saying "thank you", before swimming back out to sea.