Although the term might sound a bit strange, whale sharks are majestic and beautiful animals and are in fact the largest fish on the planet. Unfortunately, a group of these whale sharks managed to get stuck in a large fishing net in Indonesia and they were probably going to be fished up unintentionally. They’re also an endangered species, and fishing incidents like these are just one of the reasons why. Even though the species is protected by international law, they are often the victim of direct hunting.
Even though the four whale sharks already look humongous, they actually were just juveniles. Adult whale sharks can grow to be much larger fish, comparable to the size of an average school bus.
The fish were trapped off the cost of Cenderawasih Bay in West Papua, but a team of rescue divers wanted to do everything they could to free these beautiful fish from their predicament.
“On that particular day, we were close to the fishing boat and offered our help to release the shark’s without losing the whole night’s catch, our divers pulling down the nets a little and pushing up the sharks,” one of the divers said in a statement to Caters News.
Footage of the rescue both above and under water has been captured, and the divers did their best to try and liberate them from the huge fishing net, which was probably used to trap anchovies. A couple of divers tried to pull the net downwards so that the whale sharks could swim free, but other divers moved to the other side to help them get started by giving them a gentle push.
The whale sharks were still struggling to get loose, but some of the majestic fish managed to get out safely. Two others were still at the bottom of the fish net, so the divers had to unwrap the fish net completely to get them out. Mission accomplished!
After the rescue, some of the whale sharks even stayed close to the divers for a while and starting swimming alongside them, perhaps as a way of showing their gratitude. Whale sharks are known to have passive and nonaggressive behavior in the water.
The ocean advocacy group Oceana was happy to hear that the rescue was successful.
“I was so happy to see them freed,” representative Margot Stiles said. “Usually that’s not the case.”
Be sure to check out the amazing footage of the rescue below.
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Source: National Geographic, Caters TV
