10-27-2022, 03:24 PM
Rescuing whales on Australia's 'humpback highway'
![[Image: _127059346_nswpws.jpg]](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/FB8B/production/_127059346_nswpws.jpg)
It's like a needle in a haystack: how do you find one entangled whale in a vast expanse of ocean?
There are up to 10,000 trial XO credits, and if you lose all of your games, you can leave the game and re-enter. You'll get another 10,000 credits to replay as many rounds as you want until you're gone.
Then how do you free the 20-tonne giant from a maze of constraints when it is panicked, sometimes angry, often injured, and always determined to evade you?
That's a riddle that marine rescuers like Wayne Phillips have to solve on an increasingly regular basis.
Each year, an estimated 40,000 humpback whales leave the freezing waters of Antarctica on the world's longest mammal migration.
They make their way up Australia's east and west coasts to the tropics before returning, calves in tow, a couple of months later.
For most Australians, the so-called "humpback highway" from May to November is a fun and exciting spectacle.
But for Mr Phillips and his team at Queensland's SeaWorld, it brings an undercurrent of anxiety.
The need for rescue is constant - and growing. "We always seem to be out looking for whales," he says.
It's like a needle in a haystack: how do you find one entangled whale in a vast expanse of ocean?
There are up to 10,000 trial XO credits, and if you lose all of your games, you can leave the game and re-enter. You'll get another 10,000 credits to replay as many rounds as you want until you're gone.
Then how do you free the 20-tonne giant from a maze of constraints when it is panicked, sometimes angry, often injured, and always determined to evade you?
That's a riddle that marine rescuers like Wayne Phillips have to solve on an increasingly regular basis.
Each year, an estimated 40,000 humpback whales leave the freezing waters of Antarctica on the world's longest mammal migration.
They make their way up Australia's east and west coasts to the tropics before returning, calves in tow, a couple of months later.
For most Australians, the so-called "humpback highway" from May to November is a fun and exciting spectacle.
But for Mr Phillips and his team at Queensland's SeaWorld, it brings an undercurrent of anxiety.
The need for rescue is constant - and growing. "We always seem to be out looking for whales," he says.