nature
Their whale-watching photos helped rescuers cut her free
They came to watch her breach. They ended up saving her.
A humpback whale swimming through Monterey Bay this month was dragging a crab trap tangled around her body, and a whale-watching crew noticed. The tourists and guides did the ordinary thing people do on those boats. They took photos. Those images, showing exactly how the line wrapped and where the trap sat, gave a trained rescue team the information needed to reach her and cut her free. Disentangling a large whale is slow, careful work done from small boats, and knowing the geometry of the tangle before you arrive saves time that a struggling animal does not have. The crew had gone out expecting to watch whales breach and dive, the usual show. They ended up handing rescuers a map. The humpback swam off unencumbered, which is the whole point, and did not appear to notice she owed anyone anything.
