A 10-year-old girl’s quick thinking has helped keep a stranded humpback whale alive, after it became stuck in shallow water near K’gari (formerly Fraser Island) in Queensland.
Scarlet Smith was jet skiing with her mother, Chantelle, near the Wathumba Creek entrance on Sunday when they came across the whale stranded in the shallow water.
Chantelle filmed her daughter repeatedly splashing water over the whale to keep it wet while they waited for the tide to rise.
“It was talking to us,” she said.
“The whale survived. Tide came up and he swam away.”
Smith said she has visited the area on her jet ski to watch whales for about 20 years, but the encounter was unlike anything she had experienced before.
“I’m happy now, to be honest it actually ruined the rest of the beautiful day because I was just so sad wondering if it was going to actually get out,” she said.
“But until we heard that it did, it was all very sad because you know lots of whales die all the time from beaching.”
The family anchored beside the whale and continued splashing water over it while waiting for help.
“He managed to free himself then,” Smith said.
“Another boat told me it had been reported as we were pulling up so we knew that there was help on the way.”
“We just kept him wet as possible, and I knew that it was probably going to be another couple of hours until the tide came in so he could swim back out.”
“The mouth was wide open and we saw all of its baleens, which is like hair.”
The family eventually had to leave before wildlife officers arrived, but another couple remained with the whale until the tide returned.
A Queensland Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation spokesman said wildlife officers received a report about the stranded whale shortly after 9am on Sunday.
The whale freed itself shortly after officers arrived at Wathumba Creek.At high tide, the creek system becomes a large saltwater lake supporting a variety of marine life.
The remote area is rarely visited by tourists, according to the tourism authority.
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