Marine rescuers work to free whale caught in shark net on Gold Coast

SYDNEY: Australian marine rescuers were working on Thursday to free a humpback whale entangled in a shark net off Queensland's Gold Coast.

Footage showed Sea World staff reaching out with blades at the end of long poles to try and cut a large mass of netting with orange buoys and yellow weights off the whale's tail as it let out cries and thrashed its tail on the surface of the sea. "There was so much net all over it, they said it was just covered," said one unidentified resident to local television network Nine Network.