CeCe The Banker Mom...(and everyone in the thread)
*~10 YEARS BABY~*
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Hollywood
Posts: 9,369
CeCe The Banker Mom...(and everyone in the thread) I read this today and thought it was fitting Part Two to your thread.
A female humpback whale became entangled in a
spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds
of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She
also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her
tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her
just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and
radioed for help. Within a few hours, a rescue team arrived and
determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to
dive in and untangle her...a very dangerous proposition. One slap of
the tail could kill a rescuer. They worked for hours with curved
knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she
swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each
and every diver, one at a time, nudged them, and pushed gently,
thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful
experience of their lives.
The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following
him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
May you, and all those you love, be so fortunate... to be surrounded
by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are
binding you.
8__________________
Whale of a Story
The Grateful Whale:
The Grateful Whale:
A female humpback whale became entangled in a
spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds
of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She
also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her
tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her
just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and
radioed for help. Within a few hours, a rescue team arrived and
determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to
dive in and untangle her...a very dangerous proposition. One slap of
the tail could kill a rescuer. They worked for hours with curved
knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she
swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each
and every diver, one at a time, nudged them, and pushed gently,
thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful
experience of their lives.
The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following
him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
May you, and all those you love, be so fortunate... to be surrounded
by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are
binding you.
8
*~10 YEARS BABY~*
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Hollywood
Posts: 9,369
Humpback Thankful Whale
A humpback whale freed by divers from a tangle of crab trap lines near the Farallon Islands nudged its rescuers and flapped around in what marine experts said was a rare and remarkable encounter.
"It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing that it was free and that we had helped it," James Moskito, one of the rescue divers, said Tuesday. "It stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun."
Sunday's daring rescue was the first successful attempt on the West Coast to free an entangled humpback, said Shelbi Stoudt, stranding manager for the Marine Mammal Center in Marin County.
The 45- to 50-foot female humpback, estimated to weigh 50 tons, was on the humpbacks' usual migratory route between the Northern California coast and Baja California when it became entangled in the nylon ropes that link crab pots.
It was spotted by a crab fisherman at 8:30 a.m. Sunday in the open water east of the Farallones, about 18 miles off the coast of San Francisco.
Mick Menigoz of Novato, who organizes whale watching and shark diving expeditions on his boat the New Superfish, got a call for help Sunday morning, alerted the Marine Mammal Center and gathered a team of divers.
By 2:30 p.m., the rescuers had reached the whale and evaluated the situation. Team members realized the only way to save the endangered leviathan was to dive into the water and cut the ropes.
It was a very risky maneuver, Stoudt said, because the mere flip of a humpback's massive tail can kill a man.
"I was the first diver in the water, and my heart sank when I saw all the lines wrapped around it," said Moskito, a 40-year-old Pleasanton resident who works with "Great White Adventures," a cage-diving outfit that contracts with Menigoz. "I really didn't think we were going to be able to save it."
Moskito said about 20 crab-pot ropes, which are 240 feet long with weights every 60 feet, were wrapped around the animal. Rope was wrapped at least four times around the tail, the back and the left front flipper, and there was a line in the whale's mouth.
The crab pot lines were cinched so tight, Moskito said, that the rope was digging into the animal's blubber and leaving visible cuts.
At least 12 crab traps, weighing 90 pounds each, hung off the whale, the divers said. The combined weight was pulling the whale downward, forcing it to struggle mightily to keep its blow- hole out of the water.
Moskito and three other divers spent about an hour cutting the ropes with a special curved knife. The whale floated passively in the water the whole time, he said, giving off a strange kind of vibration.
"When I was cutting the line going through the mouth, its eye was there winking at me, watching me," Moskito said. "It was an epic moment of my life."
When the whale realized it was free, it began swimming around in circles, according to the rescuers. Moskito said it swam to each diver, nuzzled him and then swam to the next one.
"It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that's happy to see you,'' Moskito said. "I never felt threatened. It was an amazing, unbelievable experience."
Humpback whales are known for their complex vocalizations that sound like singing and for their acrobatic breaching, an apparently playful activity in which they lift almost their entire bodies out of the water and splash down.
Before 1900, an estimated 15,000 humpbacks lived in the North Pacific, but the population was severely reduced by commercial whaling. In the 20th century, their numbers dwindled to fewer than 1,000. An international ban on commercial whaling was instituted in 1964, but humpbacks are still endangered. Between 5,000 and 7,500 humpbacks are left in the world's oceans, and many of those survivors migrate through the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.
Whale experts say it's nice to think that the whale was thanking its rescuers, but nobody really knows what was on its mind.
"You hate to anthropomorphize too much, but the whale was doing little dives and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it," Menigoz said. "I don't know for sure what it was thinking, but it's something that I will always remember. It was just too cool."
Humpback whales hold a special place in the hearts of Bay Area residents ever since one that came to be known as Humphrey journeyed up the Sacramento River in 1985. The wayward creature swam into a slough in Rio Vista, attracting 10,000 people a day as whale experts tried desperately to turn it around. Humphrey went back to sea after 25 days of near-pandemonium and worldwide media attention.
In the fall of 1990, Humphrey turned up again inside the bay in shallow water near the Bayshore Freeway, finally beaching on mud flats near Double Rock, just off the Candlestick parking lot. He remained stuck for 25 hours, until volunteers, helped by a 41-foot Coast Guard boat, pulled him free and sent him back to the ocean. He has not been seen since.
Humpbacks like Humphrey do seem to relate to people more than other whales, according to Stoudt.
"You do hear reports of friendly humpbacks, whales approaching boaters, especially in Baja California," Stoudt said, "but, for the most part, they don't like to be interacted with."
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
"It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing that it was free and that we had helped it," James Moskito, one of the rescue divers, said Tuesday. "It stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun."
Sunday's daring rescue was the first successful attempt on the West Coast to free an entangled humpback, said Shelbi Stoudt, stranding manager for the Marine Mammal Center in Marin County.
The 45- to 50-foot female humpback, estimated to weigh 50 tons, was on the humpbacks' usual migratory route between the Northern California coast and Baja California when it became entangled in the nylon ropes that link crab pots.
It was spotted by a crab fisherman at 8:30 a.m. Sunday in the open water east of the Farallones, about 18 miles off the coast of San Francisco.
Mick Menigoz of Novato, who organizes whale watching and shark diving expeditions on his boat the New Superfish, got a call for help Sunday morning, alerted the Marine Mammal Center and gathered a team of divers.
By 2:30 p.m., the rescuers had reached the whale and evaluated the situation. Team members realized the only way to save the endangered leviathan was to dive into the water and cut the ropes.
It was a very risky maneuver, Stoudt said, because the mere flip of a humpback's massive tail can kill a man.
"I was the first diver in the water, and my heart sank when I saw all the lines wrapped around it," said Moskito, a 40-year-old Pleasanton resident who works with "Great White Adventures," a cage-diving outfit that contracts with Menigoz. "I really didn't think we were going to be able to save it."
Moskito said about 20 crab-pot ropes, which are 240 feet long with weights every 60 feet, were wrapped around the animal. Rope was wrapped at least four times around the tail, the back and the left front flipper, and there was a line in the whale's mouth.
The crab pot lines were cinched so tight, Moskito said, that the rope was digging into the animal's blubber and leaving visible cuts.
At least 12 crab traps, weighing 90 pounds each, hung off the whale, the divers said. The combined weight was pulling the whale downward, forcing it to struggle mightily to keep its blow- hole out of the water.
Moskito and three other divers spent about an hour cutting the ropes with a special curved knife. The whale floated passively in the water the whole time, he said, giving off a strange kind of vibration.
"When I was cutting the line going through the mouth, its eye was there winking at me, watching me," Moskito said. "It was an epic moment of my life."
When the whale realized it was free, it began swimming around in circles, according to the rescuers. Moskito said it swam to each diver, nuzzled him and then swam to the next one.
"It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that's happy to see you,'' Moskito said. "I never felt threatened. It was an amazing, unbelievable experience."
Humpback whales are known for their complex vocalizations that sound like singing and for their acrobatic breaching, an apparently playful activity in which they lift almost their entire bodies out of the water and splash down.
Before 1900, an estimated 15,000 humpbacks lived in the North Pacific, but the population was severely reduced by commercial whaling. In the 20th century, their numbers dwindled to fewer than 1,000. An international ban on commercial whaling was instituted in 1964, but humpbacks are still endangered. Between 5,000 and 7,500 humpbacks are left in the world's oceans, and many of those survivors migrate through the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.
Whale experts say it's nice to think that the whale was thanking its rescuers, but nobody really knows what was on its mind.
"You hate to anthropomorphize too much, but the whale was doing little dives and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it," Menigoz said. "I don't know for sure what it was thinking, but it's something that I will always remember. It was just too cool."
Humpback whales hold a special place in the hearts of Bay Area residents ever since one that came to be known as Humphrey journeyed up the Sacramento River in 1985. The wayward creature swam into a slough in Rio Vista, attracting 10,000 people a day as whale experts tried desperately to turn it around. Humphrey went back to sea after 25 days of near-pandemonium and worldwide media attention.
In the fall of 1990, Humphrey turned up again inside the bay in shallow water near the Bayshore Freeway, finally beaching on mud flats near Double Rock, just off the Candlestick parking lot. He remained stuck for 25 hours, until volunteers, helped by a 41-foot Coast Guard boat, pulled him free and sent him back to the ocean. He has not been seen since.
Humpbacks like Humphrey do seem to relate to people more than other whales, according to Stoudt.
"You do hear reports of friendly humpbacks, whales approaching boaters, especially in Baja California," Stoudt said, "but, for the most part, they don't like to be interacted with."
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Jujubee Queen
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Port Charlotte, Florida
Posts: 3,582
Done,
Thanks for the story, puts tears in my eyes, it does. Animals are such gentle loving creatures. It really annoys me to the max when anyone mistreats them...
I love everything with FUR, or feathers!
Thanks for the story, puts tears in my eyes, it does. Animals are such gentle loving creatures. It really annoys me to the max when anyone mistreats them...
I love everything with FUR, or feathers!
Hug giver-outer!
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: The State of Possibilities
Posts: 533
How beautiful a story! Wish I could have been one of the lucky divers!
When I was young and spent the summers in New Brunswick, Canada, we used to swim in the Bay of Fundy with the porpoises or dolphins; we never knew which. They were so much fun; they would play with us, especially we kids and they were always so gentle with us. It almost seemed like they were protecting us. They would let us grab their tails and their dorsal fins and we would be pulled along, but they always swam parallel to the shore, never away from it. If they didn't, we kids could never have gotten back safely. It was the highlight of my childhood even though the water was so cold we would come out with blue lips and legs! lol We didn't care as long as they were in the water, we were so glad to be able to be with them. They would just come in a small school, play around with us and then leave.
Some of the creatures from the sea are amazing.
When I was young and spent the summers in New Brunswick, Canada, we used to swim in the Bay of Fundy with the porpoises or dolphins; we never knew which. They were so much fun; they would play with us, especially we kids and they were always so gentle with us. It almost seemed like they were protecting us. They would let us grab their tails and their dorsal fins and we would be pulled along, but they always swam parallel to the shore, never away from it. If they didn't, we kids could never have gotten back safely. It was the highlight of my childhood even though the water was so cold we would come out with blue lips and legs! lol We didn't care as long as they were in the water, we were so glad to be able to be with them. They would just come in a small school, play around with us and then leave.
Some of the creatures from the sea are amazing.
On a tear
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Volcano Country!
Posts: 3,221
Though we mostly make our way through life by figuring out stuff for ourselves; sometimes, it takes the help of others to free us from the stuff we manage to get tangled up in.
(((Done)))
(((Done)))
To Life!
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Rhode Island
Posts: 9,293
Amen to that, Sis.... 
Moose, you love everything with fur and feathers, huh?
How about blow holes?
Never thought about *that* one,
but, I digress....
It's still a great story with a great moral for cece's story.
Yes, it is! :>)
Shalom!
Moose, you love everything with fur and feathers, huh?
How about blow holes?
Never thought about *that* one,
but, I digress....
It's still a great story with a great moral for cece's story.
Yes, it is! :>)
Shalom!
Nature Girl
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
I can't stand to see an animal suffer and since I live in an area now that has more wildlife than I have ever seen, I have even more respect for their habitat and preservation.
I have the loveliest foxes that live in the forest next to me and they are totally unagressive and such beautiful creatures that walk along the shore at sunrise or dusk and bother nobody. Foxes really get a bad rap, I think.
Great thread, Done, just shows how working to help each other makes the world a better place for each of us.
Hugs
I have the loveliest foxes that live in the forest next to me and they are totally unagressive and such beautiful creatures that walk along the shore at sunrise or dusk and bother nobody. Foxes really get a bad rap, I think.
Great thread, Done, just shows how working to help each other makes the world a better place for each of us.
Hugs
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