Two Rare Oarfish Rescued in Mexico Beach Stranding

Two rare deep-sea oarfish, elongated creatures that typically dwell at depths of around 3,000 feet, washed ashore in shallow waters near Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in early March, drawing a crowd of beachgoers and sparking widespread online interest after a video of the encounter surfaced.

Monica Pittenger, a visitor to the beach, captured the footage on March 4 and shared it on Instagram in collaboration with the account We Love Animals. The video shows the two silvery, ribbon-like fish—one stranded farther up on the sand and the other partially submerged in the shallows—struggling near the shoreline. Pittenger and her group first noticed something unusual from a distance. "We saw something in the distance. It was flashing, and it was really bright," she recounted in the video. As they approached, the sight left them stunned. "When we saw them up close, it was like nothing we've seen before, so we were like, 'This can't be real,'" Pittenger said.

Most onlookers hesitated to intervene, unsure of what they were witnessing. "I think a lot of people were very hesitant because nobody really knew what it was. It's not every day that you see that. And I mean, I don't blame them,"...