A 20-foot orca stranded at Prince of Wales Island in the US state of Ala. Animal welfare officials rescued it on Thursday, nearby boaters and a rising tide.
According to CNN, sailors near shore found the whale stuck in a crevasse about a meter above the tide line. The crew alerted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which authorized the use of a seawater pump to keep wet orcas and birds away from the whale. TikTok user Aroon Melane shared a video documenting the rescue operation, showing the crew soaking the beached whale with buckets.
,,We were working on a hose and a pump.” Melane explains in the video. ,,Meanwhile, we used buckets to keep the orcas wet.” Fortunately, according to Melane, the orca recovered after the crew doused it with water. Six hours after the first sighting, thanks to the tide, the whale finally returned to the sea. As the tide rose, the seawater rose enough for the whale to break free of the rocks and swim away. NOAA spokeswoman Julie Fair told CNN that NOAA will review photos and videos taken during the rescue to determine whether the whale was injured.
The cause of the grounding is still unclear. Less than 24 hours earlier, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck off southwest Alaska, but NOAA does not believe it caused the hurricane’s grounding. Fair told CNN that no other whales were stranded but that. ,,The orca made vocalizations during the stranding and other orcas have been seen in the area.”