A pod of 12 sperm whales washed up on an Indonesian beach, and people are scrambling to save them. At least two of the animals have been, and if they stay out of the deep water for too long, they will perish. Volunteers have been attempting to bring the whales back out to sea by tying a rope around them. ‘We could wait till high tide, but we’re afraid they’ll drown,’ said Sapto Prabowo of the Natural Resource Conservation Agency. The whales washed up together on Sumatra’s northern shore in Aceh province.
At Ujong Kareng beach in Aceh province, rescuers attempt to drive stranded whales back into the water.
Ropes were fastened around the whales.
Fishermen are doing everything possible to help officials save the giant marine creatures. People stepping onto the coral and tying ropes around the whales, each of which was several meters long and flailing its gigantic fins in the shallow water, featured in multiple images on social media.
Adult sperm whales may grow to be 12 meters long and weigh up to 57 tons, making them one of the world’s biggest animals. Whales have been beached in many parts of Indonesia, which is a massive archipelago with over 17,000 islands.
A group of 29 pilot whales were entangled in a mangrove swamp off the coast of Java in 2016, but they were able to free themselves or were aided by fishermen in returning to sea.
