A kayaker based in Namibia captured his encounters with numerous baby seals trapped in netting and how he cut them free with a line cutter.

Schalk Louw, who filmed these rescues in May 2019, caught the seal pups in a specially designed blue net after the mammals had become entangled.

"We got a net from a good friend in California to help aid us in our rescues. We’re testing it out and it works well with the small pups. In the video, Naude is using the net to catch a pup caught in fishing line and I used my line cutter to assist him and to cut the pup free," said Louw.

A compilation of the kayakers' rescues has racked up over 55 million views on YouTube as of May 2020.

In another rescue, the kayaker manages to catch a seal by its tail that had fishing lines around its neck.

Louw told Newsflare: "My line cutter could not cut through the line without having to use excessive force. Thankfully Francois was there with his Leatherman so he cut the lines off and the pup was free to play again."

Further footage shows a herd of seals on a beach in Namibia running towards the sea while the filmers chase them with a blue net. The bag is then placed in front of a baby seal who runs directly inside.

A specially placed zip on the bag is opened where the head of the seal is and the rescuers then use their cutters to remove the netting.

The filmers show how they hold the puppy's head down with some force because of the strength evident in the sea mammal. However each seal then happily flees to the sea, free from the manmade trapping.

I caught this Pup with a gillnet around it’s neck. I caught it, cut the gillnet off and this pup was free again to go play with its friends. This was filmed on a GoPro Hero 4+. There are so many Seals that get entangled in Trash floating in the waters especially the pups who end up playing with it not knowing how dangerous that trash is. This was filmed on Pelican Point in Walvis Bay Namibia.

We got a net from a good friend in California to help aid us in our rescues. In this clip we’re testing it out and it works well with the small pups. We’ll need a net that can zip from the bottom to catch the big seals. In the video Naude is using the net to catch a pup caught in fishing line and i used my line cutter to assist him and to cut the pup free. This was filmed at Pelican Point in Walvis Bay, Namibia. I used my GoPro Hero7 Black to film this.

I work for Pelican Point Kayaking as a tour guide and it’s our mission to rescue as many entangled seals as possible while we are in the area. On 10 May I spotted this seal pup entangled in Trawler line. My line cutter could not cut through the line without having to use excessive force. Thankfully Francois was there with his Leatherman so he cut the lines off and the pup was free to play again. This footage was filmed on my GoPro Hero7black.