Partial Disentanglement of Right Whale Accomplished

Wildlife rescuers found the young whale in the North Atlantic right whale calving grounds off northeast Florida and they attempted to free it of the deadly ropes.

"The disentanglement team removed hundreds of feet of rope yesterday, and was able to cut through more rope today," said Jamison Smith, NOAA's Fisheries Service's large whale disentanglement coordinator.

"Although we did not remove all of the entangling rope, we feel confident the rest of the rope will slough off as the whale swims through the water," he said.

Smith says the whale was born in 2007. It was last sighted on September 25, 2008 in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, where it was not entangled at the time.

A team from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission first sighted the entangled whale on December 26, during routine aerial surveys designed to spot right whales in their only known calving grounds.

A right whale entangled in fishing line (Photo courtesy Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies)

The aerial survey teams provide ships early warnings of right whales in their paths, and look for sick, injured and entangled whales.

"This is good news for North Atlantic right whales and truly a team effort," said Smith. "These rescue efforts are not possible without support from all of our disentanglement network partners."

The disentanglement team consisted of land, sea, and air support from NOAA, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, New England Aquarium and Wildlife Trust.

With only 300 to 350 animals still in existence, North Atlantic right whales are among the most endangered whales in the world. They are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.

Vessel strikes and entanglement in fixed fishing gear are the two greatest threats to their recovery.

In a report released December 15, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society details what happens to entangled whales as they die.

"Large whales that become entangled in fishing gear have been found with severe lacerations deep into their blubber and even into their bones," the report states. "As these animals are powerful enough to swim away and pull the gear with them, the rope continues to tighten and cut into their body over time, often resulting in a slow and painful death."

Based in the United Kingdom, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society is calling on governments and regulatory bodies around the world "to act urgently and decisively to end this unacceptable suffering of whales and dolphins."

"This will require changes to the way fish are caught and even closure of fisheries where there is no effective or practicable way of preventing the incidental capture of whales and dolphins," says the conservation group.

Ali Ross, fisheries advisor to WDCS said, "This is a serious animal welfare issue. We're not just talking about animals suffering a protracted death but also a horrifically painful and distressing one. Animals are breaking teeth and jaws, severing fins and suffering deep gashes and internal injuries. If this was occurring on land rather than out of sight, shrouded by the sea, the international community would have taken far stronger and far swifter action to bring an end to this problem."

Entanglement in fishing nets and abandoned line is estimated to kill more than 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises worldwide each year, the WDCS report states.

"Based on scarring from fishing gear it is estimated that at least 72 percent of the right whale population had been involved in an entanglement event at some point in their lives, and that 10-30 percent of the population is entangled each year," according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN.

Formerly common on both sides of the North Atlantic, the right whale appears to be effectively extinct in the eastern North Atlantic.

In the western North Atlantic the species migrates from the calving ground off Florida and Georgia along the eastern seaboard of North America, to summer in the Gulf of Maine, Bay of Fundy, and Scotian Shelf, with some individuals reaching the Gulf of St Lawrence, the Davis and Denmark Straits and occasionally Iceland and Norway.

NOAA's Fisheries Service encourages people to report sightings of dead, injured, or entangled whales to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission at 1-888-404-FWCC(3922).

All live right whale sightings should be reported to 1-877-97-WHALE or 1-877-979-4253.

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