It took over 3 hours, but this conservation officer helped save 7 beached whales in Embree

On Wednesday a resource enforcement officer with Newfoundland and Labrador's Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture Department took swift action in Embree — a community just north of Lewisporte — to rescue seven beached long-finned pilot whales, also known as pothead whales.

Ryan Collier told CBC Radio's On The Go he got the call around 9 a.m. Wednesday morning from a town worker who described eight whales had become stranded on a beach head during low tide the night before.

One, a young calf, was dead when Collier arrived. 

"It's not a part of our regular duties, dealing with beached whales. So I said 'I'm close to the area, I'm 10 minutes away, I'll come down and make the appropriate phone calls when I get there,'" Collier said. 

"You could tell they were stressed out and everything else, and I couldn't just sit there and wait, so I just started out in the water and started pushing, pulling and rolling them over just to see what I could do."

Collier said some of the smaller whales were about six feet to seven feet long. The largest was 14 feet long, he said.

The tide was already beginning to rise, slowly but surely, when Collier arrived to the scene. He said he tried to wiggle each whale as much as he could along the slippery sea kelp, as much as a millimetre at a time.