CANNON BEACH — Staff from the Haystack Rock Awareness Program helped rescue a giant Pacific octopus Wednesday morning after a visitor noticed the beached animal in a tide pool.

Kelli Ennis, the director of the awareness program, said that staff usually encounter one to two beached octopuses per year during low tides. Typically, these octopuses are less-skilled juveniles, about a foot long, who get caught in tide pools while seeking prey closer to shore.

The octopus found Wednesday morning, however, was larger and older than the octopuses staff typically see.

The awareness program team was able to steer the octopus back into deeper water by creating a perimeter around the animal that served to both guide the tides and keep people from getting too close.

“We usually like to try to help keep a clearance and guide it into the water with the least amount of disturbance happening,” Ennis said. “We don’t want to just directly go and scoop it up and toss it in the water or anything like that. We hope to guide it there on its own to reduce stress.”