Rescuers freed a humpback whale after it became tangled in a shark net off the coast of Australia's Noosa Head's Main Beach.

"It's not thrashing very much, it doesn't seem to be moving. We're all, all of us here are feeling very distressed," said an unidentified woman who had been watching the whale after it became trapped.

Rescuers from the Department of Fisheries in Queensland used special sharp tools and managed to cut the adult male whale free from the net and it swam slowly away, local media reported.

Humpback whales migrate north form the Antarctic to the warmer waters off Australia's coast from June to November.

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