Funny you mention that about helping a human: kept waiting for it and got growingly annoyed it was not there.
Watched a news piece some time ago about a pod of whales trapped by miles of sea ice somewhere in the frozen north. A group of volunteers, including Native Americans chopped enough breathing holes in the ice for the whales to make it back to open sea. Quite an undertaking. The whales, it appeared, knew that someone was trying to help them.