Whale Rescue - Snaps

[businessasusual]

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I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time with these. Whales beached themselves on the South West Coast of Australia. The environmental authorities made the call to move them to another bay - 15kms away. (they hoped a new bay would pprevent another beaching) About 80 had beached themselves. There were groups of volunteers - each group was assigned one whale. They stayed with their adoptee overnight, constantly pouring water over them and trying to keep them alive. By morning - only 11 had survived. (The groups whose adoptee died were devastated) The surviving 11 made the 15km journey to another bay. Each whale was put into a large haulage truck by crane. It took hours - the roads down south west are windy and narrow. I happened to be there on a weeks break when I saw the news on TV and so made my way down to the bay where they were arriving. I was not suprised at how many people there were. Neither was I surprised at the magnitute of the rescue operation. What suprised me most was that my tears just flowed and kept flowing throughout all the snaps I captured. (and there are many) I struggled to see through the viewfinder, fortunately VLux with autofocus - no matter how hard I tried - it was a battle composing both myself and the images. Overhwhelming to see young and old - 6 to 70 years old - in wetsuits - the love and dedication was unbelievable, a moment of spirituality for me. They worked non stop. They manged to get the 11 out to sea. A day later all but 2 beached themselves again, this time they did not survive, 2 did. This experience restored my faith in humanity. Japanese tourists were handing out coffee to the volunteers - that was a really sweet moment!!!! :)

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[azzo]

Touching story!

 

Thank you for sharing it with us.

[Michael Hiles]

Many thanks for this. So hard to understand the whales' behaviour. So sad.

[daveleo]

thanks for posting this. There are some very beautiful people out there.

[k-hawinkler]

Thanks for caring and posting.

A dramatic event.

 

K-H.

[pauledell]

Thanks for posting your pictures with the touching and sad narrative, but at least it shows the concern that many people had and their charity.

 

Paul