Hawaiian Family Spots Shark Strangled By Rope & Dive Into Action.

Humans often come to the aid of animals in distress, but divers are in a unique position since they can perform rescues underwater.

Many of those rescues are performed by scuba divers, who can work for hours if they have extra tanks, rebreathers or other gear that allows them to work for long periods of time. But it’s a different story for free divers, who can only last down there for as long as they can hold a single breath.

whale shark entangled
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In late August, marine biologist husband and wife Joby Rohrer and Kapua Kawelo were out on a free-diving excursion off Kaunolu, Lainai, with their two children, 17-year-old son Kanehoalani and 15-year-old daughter Ho’ohila. The family spotted a 20-foot juvenile whale shark drifting close by, and Kanehoalani noticed a large gauge line wrapped tightly around the middle of its body and creating deep lacerations in its fins.

It’s likely this was the same whale that had been spotted a couple weeks earlier, and officials later asked anyone who spotted it to alert professionals so they could get to work setting it free. But the family didn’t know about the previous sighting and with their backgrounds, figured they could tackle the job themselves. But they didn’t jump in right away, Kapua noted.

We waited a long time to consider what our responsibility was … We know that people don’t necessarily encourage this type of thing but both of us are biologist. We felt like we were sort of in tune with what the animal was doing and maybe we were meant to be there.


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But making the decision to help was the easy part. The rope was approximately five inches thick, so this wasn’t a simple rescue that involved cutting a fishing line away from a sea lion or pulling out a hook. Roby didn’t know whether he’d be able to cut it away, at least not all at once. And he didn’t.

Don’t worry buddy, I’m just going up to get some more air.

joby back to surface
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It took five separate dives, each down to between 30 and 60 feet, for a total of 45 minutes before this behemoth was finally set free!  Kanehoalani documented the entire painstaking process in the footage below, and Ho’ohila swam the 150-lb. rope back to shore. Technically speaking, it was neutrally buoyant and therefore easier to drag through the water… but it sure didn’t feel that way!


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“I was just dragging it in the water and I couldn’t imagine what that shark was going through, having to haul that around everywhere,” she said afterward.

Watch the video below to watch Joby at work, and share to thank him and the rest of his family for coming to this whale shark’s rescue.


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