Video shows whale’s ‘confronting’ struggle in shark nets off Noosa

A Noosa filmmaker has described the confronting and “super sad” moments he witnessed a small whale struggle to break free of shark nets near Noosa. See the video.

A Noosa filmmaker has described the confronting and “super sad” moments he witnessed a small whale struggle to break free of shark nets near Noosa.

The video posted to social media by Noosa local and filmmaker, Hunter Vercoe, showed the whale thrashing in the water while tangled in the netting at Little Cove.

Mr Vercoe said he came across the “pretty confronting” scene while filming a surfing video on Friday morning.

“I noticed about three or four whales, they were in pretty close and I started filming them when the smaller one went straight into the net,’ Mr Vercoe said.

“It started thrashing around, then another whale came over and they were both just thrashing around but after 10 minutes it seemed it had freed itself.”

Mr Vercoe said he spends nine months of the year filming surfers around Noosa and he had never seen anything like it.

“It was pretty confronting, I have never seen anything like that before, I have seen videos and shots from drones but seeing it in person was confronting because you obviously can’t do anything about it,” Mr Vercoe said.

“It was super sad to watch.”

Commenters on social media were quick to criticise the use of the nets, with one user Desiré Gralton stating they created a “false sense of security”.

“It’s time to get rid of the nets, they create a false sense of security and are killing innocent creatures,”

Another commenter, Simon Gardner, also called for the removal of the nets.

“Remove them, complete waste of time and money and obviously destructive,” Mr Gardner said.

The Noosa Council said it was not aware of the incident.

A Department of Agriculture and Fisheries spokesman said they received a call at 7.40am advising them a whale had been caught in a shark net, but a follow-up call confirmed the whale was freed 10 minutes later.

“A SCP (Shark Control Program) contractor attended to inspect the net, which was undamaged,” he said.

“For their own safety, we remind the public it is dangerous to approach or try to release whales trapped in nets.”