In front of the Bay of Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, an entangled humpback whale was recorded, so in less than an hour a team from the Network for the Assistance of Entangled Whales (RABEN) came to the rescue.

Here you can see the maneuvers of the volunteers and authorities of Semar, Port Authority and Semarnat, to untangle it for four hours.

Belem Valencia, member of RABEN: “We saw a juvenile, a juvenile humpback whale completely wrapped in a fishing net… at the beginning it was very evasive, it really cost us a lot of work. It took us approximately four hours in all the rescue maneuvers.

The whale, after resisting, suddenly seemed to realize that they were trying to help her.

Mirella Díaz, RABEN Volunteer: "At first she didn't want to cooperate much, so we had to put several, several buoys to try to tire her out and get her to start cooperating." 

Belem Valencia, member of RABEN: "...but once we made the first cut, the little animal seemed to understand that we wanted to help it and cooperated."

There was evidence that the cetacean had been entangled for at least two weeks.

Mirella Díaz, RABEN Volunteer: “…at least a couple of weeks because it was already clear that she had many parasites throughout her body.”

Belem Valencia, member of RABEN: “Here I can show you what we took from the whole whale…”. 

She was finally freed with the jubilant reaction of the volunteers who saw her jump in the distance.

Mirella Díaz, RABEN Volunteer: “…it is one of the best rewards in life, really, because yes, it left, and after a few minutes we saw that it jumped into the distance, so it was something like “thank you”…

In the first two months of the four-month whale watching season, three cases of entanglement have already been reported.