Surfers hear a crying baby whale, spend 6 hours saving her

A group of local surfers in Boca Barranca, Costa Rica were about to catch the waves when something unusual caught their attention. It was around five o’clock in the morning when Mauricio Camareno and his friends have spotted something that looked like a “black lump” in the mouth of a nearby river.

Shortly after, a creature could be heard crying from the spot, so the surfers decided to check in. They soon realized it was a baby pilot whale who got stuck there, about 150 feet downstream. As the poor creature seemed to be too exhausted to swim back into the sea, the surfers carried her back into the open sea.

“She was very weak and could not keep afloat,” Camareno told Amelia Rueda.

But that’s not all. Since the whale calf was still unable to swim, Camareno and his companions decided to stay with her until she’ll regain her strength. It took around six hour. During whole this time, several locals were gathered to see what is going on. Some of them even called the Costa Rica’s Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) and the Coast Guard. Unfortunately, none of them responded.

“They told us that they had to follow a protocol to check if the whale had any disease. MINAE said they would send a [veterinarian] but during the whole time we were there no one ever arrived,” Mauricio said.

Therefore, the kind-hearted surfers decide to wait for the tide to rise, to make sure the scared calf will find her way back into the deep waters. In the end, after six long hours, the baby whale’s agony came to an end as she dived back into the sea. All thanks to these heroes!

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time when pilot whales are stranded on a beach. A couple of years ago, an impressive number (around 400) of pilot whales ended up stranded on the a New Zealand beach. Back then, authorities helped by dozens of volunteers tried to save them.