A video posted on social media Wednesday shows dozens of trapped orca whales escaping after being encircled by drift ice in Japan.
Sixteen orca whales could be seen bobbing in the water among broken chunks of ice off the coast of Rausu, Japan, in the Nemuro Strait, which divides Japan’s north-eastern coast from the Russian island of Kunashir. Officials who traveled to the seaside town to monitor the whales said they managed to escape the ice Wednesday without any human intervention, BBC reported.
🇯🇵🇷🇺 Russia’s Federal Agency for Fishery has offered Japan to help rescue the Orca whales caught in the drifting ice.
The agency’s letter to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan says that the Fishery Agency and the Russian Federal Research Institute of… pic.twitter.com/Jg0YUSPqrn
— dana (@dana916) February 7, 2024
“We believe they were able to escape safely,” an official from Rausu reportedly said.
A fisherman spotted the trapped orcas off the Japanese coast days before their rescue, according to the outlet. After the video was shown on Japanese television, public concern for the whales rose with requests for government assistance. One environmental group petitioned the Japanese government to deploy an icebreaker to make an exit path for the trapped whales, the BBC reported. (RELATED: Video Shows Live Octopus Escape From A Restaurant Food Bucket: REPORT)
Some whales appeared to be bleeding at their jaws due to their escape attempts and having to emerge from the water to breathe, the BBC noted. Orcas, unlike other species of whales, must resurface every few minutes as they cannot remain underwater for long periods, the BBC noted.