WATCH: Tourists discover massive Pacific octopus twisting inside Washington state park
WATCH: Wildlife experts help giant Pacific octopus washed ashore in Washington
A family visiting from Vancouver, British Columbia, reported the octopus that was found stranded on a Puget Sound beach to a ranger at Bay View State Park. The Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve was then notified and asked to help the stranded octopus. When crews arrived, they found the soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusk twisting around on a mud flat.
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. - Check out this massive giant Pacific octopus that found its sea legs shoreside in Washington on Wednesday.
A family visiting from Vancouver, British Columbia, reported the octopus that was found stranded on a Puget Sound beach to a ranger at Bay View State Park. The Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve was then notified and asked to help the stranded octopus. When crews arrived, they found the soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusk twisting around on a mud flat.
"This octopus was not making much headway as its body weight was too heavy outside its usual aquatic environment," the reserve said in a Facebook post. "Additionally, the tide was going out leaving the octopus a great distance from the water."
The three-person crew was able to get the octopus into a large bin and push it to the water, where it slowly crept out and returned to the ocean.
"We can only speculate how it ended up stranded on the beach," the reserve said. "Maybe the tide caught it by surprise!"