A pair of students captured distressing footage of a young humpback whale struggling off the Sunshine Coast after getting caught in a shark net, on July 27. The twin teenagers, Ada and Eugenie Hearn, were in the water filming the shark nets for a research assignment when they captured the video. The whale struggles and thrashes in and out of the water, fortunately the girls said it managed to get away unharmed.

Shark nets are a source of controversy in Australia – this is not the first whale to get caught in a Noosa net – with conservationists and environmentalists arguing other animals get caught in them unnecessarily. Credit: Ada and Genie Hearn