On January 11th, professional diver and excursion expert, Keller Laros and his team did what they do every night - Lead a group of tourist divers into the ocean off the Hawaiian island of Kona, to experience the stingrays up close. While that in itself was a magical experience, what happened that night, was even more unforgettable!
Kelly says the group was just settling in to view the magnificent giant Mantas when they saw a Bottlenose dolphin swimming toward them. While that in itself was not unusual, what caught the diver's attention was the mammal's unusual squeal. As the dolphin came close and almost pushed itself onto Kelly, he realized that it was in distress, thanks to a fishing line that had entangled around it, and was asking for help!
Fortunately for the dolphin, it had picked the right humans - People that cared and more importantly, knew what to do without hurting it. Kelly manage to gently extract the fishing hook that had firmly embedded itself inside the dolphin's mouth and snip off the tightly entangled fishing line from its pectoral fins. What stunned the team the most was that the dolphin seemed to really trust them and cooperated fully with Kelly, the entire time.
The best part about this once-in-a-lifetime event is that diver and photographer Martina Wing had her cameras rolling and captured the entire event, as it unfolded. This is not the first time these poor mammals have become victims of human error - The most famous example of that of course is Winter and then there was the Orca whale off the waters of New Zealand that also had to be rescued by a diver after its tail became entangled in a crayfish buoy - And these, are just the ones that we know about. We wonder how many others have not been as lucky and perished thanks to our carelessness.
Resources: Yahoo.com, nodeju.com