Cape Town - The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) Simonstown duty crew were activated by the Transnet National Ports Authority following eye-witness reports of a whale entangled in rope off-shore of Clovelly, between Kalk Bay and Fish Hoek on Tuesday afternoon.
The sea rescue launched immediately, carrying South African Whale Disentanglement Network (SAWDN) cutting equipment to recce the situation.
The NSRI crew consisting of Darren Zimmerman, Harry Marais, Herby Meth and Andre Nortje, arrived swiftly on the scene first and we found a large Southern Right whale, 10 to 12 meters in length, entangled with at least 8 wraps of rope around its tail.
The whale appeared to be healthy and it was very active.
“Using the SAWDN cutting gear the we immediately began cutting away at the rope and we were able to cut free all of the wraps of rope which were recovered and the whale swam away appearing to be healthy and the disentanglement operation has been successful,” said NSRI Simonstown station commander, Zimmerman.
“Our NSRI Simonstown sea rescue craft Spirit of Safmarine III and the NSRI Kommetjie sea rescue craft IL Battello then arrived to join us on the scene and together we investigated additional Southern Right whales that were in the area at the time and all of the whales that we encountered were swimming freely with no further entanglements identified,”
The NSRI Simonstown rescue vehicle was also dispatched to Clovelly parking area to assist with communications and crowd assistance and Cape Town Traffic Services responded to assist with traffic control at Main Road, where a bottleneck on the roadway was caused from concerned onlookers and traffic flow was further hampered by roadworks taking place in the area.
“NSRI commend the many concerned members of the public who raised the alarm and we are thankful to Cape Town Traffic Services for their assistance with traffic control,” Zimmerman said.
The operation was successfully completed by 6pm on Tuesday.
Cape Argus