Porpoise successfully released

A PORPOISE that beached itself just outside the Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary, in Shetland, on Friday morning has successfully been released into the wild again.

The one metre long animal was taken back into the sea by divers from British Divers Marine Life Rescue who arrived in Shetland on Friday afternoon to free a Humpback whale that got trapped in creel lines, off Vidlin.

With the Humpback rescue officially called off after no sign of the whale was found on Friday, the divers diverted their attention to the porpoise in trouble.

Jan Bevington, who had found the mammal, said the divers had done “an amazing job” by taking the animal into deeper water before letting it go.

“They took on their wetsuits, walked into the bay up to their necks and let it go. The porpoise did three leaps and then shot out to sea,” she said.

Meanwhile, neither Shetland Coastguard nor the Scottish SPCA had reports of any sightings of the Humpback whale that was in the centre of intense media attention on Thursday.

Senior inspector Ron Patterson described this as the “best possible outcome” for the young humpback whale.