This is the moment a huge whale stuck in an abandoned fishing net finally swims free after being cut loose by fishermen.

Lori Zablocki, aged 53, and his brother, who was not named, sighted the entangled whale off Feia Island in the municipality of Penha in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina on 5th June.

Zablocki told news website NSC Total: “We were moving from one place to another and we came across the whale submerged and all tangled up in a net.

“We then took a knife and started cutting. It was all tangled up from tail to mouth.”

It took over an hour to save the large mammal, and Zablocki said that saving it was a rewarding experience.

He told NSC Total: “It took us over an hour to save it. Thank God everything worked out. How great that we managed it. It was tiring, but it was rewarding.”

Another fisherman in a nearby boat also filmed the two men labouring to save the large animal.

According to oceanographer Gabriela Sardinha of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, the species was probably a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).

Humpback whales can reach 52 feet in length and 33 short tons. They typically migrate up to 16,000 miles each year.

There are believed to be some 80,000 humpback whales in existence worldwide. Entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships and noise pollution pose the greatest threats to their survival.