While enjoying a day at the beach with her family, a 10-year-old girl discovered the presence of a giant octopus, stuck in the mud. A discovery that allowed the rescue of the cephalopod.
The scene took place in Padilla Bay, Washington State, in the northwestern United States. Blending with the Pacific Ocean, the estuary is not used to seeing large marine animals run aground.
However, on March 15, an unlikely encounter will take place on the beach between a 10-year-old girl and a dying giant Pacific octopus.
Enjoying her day at the beach, with a bucket in her hand, like any self-respecting child, the little girl will discover the cephalopod, stuck in the mud, struggling to move forward, in vain.
Out of water, a giant octopus can survive a few minutes, at most. Thus, the little girl alerts her parents and undertakes to keep the octopus alive by filling the bucket with water, and constantly pouring this water on it.
In the meantime, the parents had the good instinct to alert the local organization responsible for preserving the environment and wildlife, the Padillay Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.
“The octopus was not making much progress because its body weight was too heavy outside of its usual aquatic environment. Additionally, the tide was receding, leaving the octopus a great distance from the water,” the reserve wrote in an Instagram post.
The octopus , which is a female weighing between 36 and 45 kilos, was rescued by the reserve team. They placed it in a bin filled with water and carried it back to the sea: “the octopus slowly slid down and returned to the sea” .
The reasons why the octopus was stranded there nevertheless remain mysterious, probably taken by surprise by the tide. Without the intervention of the little girl, at first, and that of her parents, the cephalopod would certainly have lost its life.
