Whale Had to Be Cut Free from Fishing Line and Coaxed Away

“I think this whale is likely going to be fine,” said Landry “The prognosis for this whale is quite good. We're optimistic."

The line that had been kept the juvenile whale, about 30 to 35 feet long, tangled up for at least 24 hours was slashed with one cut and the animal was free, Landry said.

However, that followed a number of times the two person team tried in vain to cut the line, using a 30 foot pole with a small knife attached, said Landry in a telephone interview later in the afternoon.

Catherine Macort, another official with the Center for Coastal Studies, said later in an email, "After assessing the entanglement the responders used a hooked knife on the end of a pole to cut through the line and free the whale."

Macort said the fishing line "was pretty typical, very strong, a little less than 1/2 inch thick, tightly wrapped around both sides of the whale's flukes (tail)."

Landry said in the phone interview that the entanglement was clearly causing the whale a lot of pain, which seemed to keep it from thrashing about, which could have put the team in jeopardy.

“It was just a big, wild animal in a lot of pain, and quite fearful,” he said.

"The whale chose to get away from us instead of fighting us," Landry said. "It went under the water for 20 minutes, so we had to be patient. We had a whale about 20 to 30 tons, under us and we didn't know where it was going to come up. Shortly after it came back up, we were able to make the cut."

Macort said, "A small buoy and a high flyer pole were recovered, along with some of the line. We don't know at this point what it was attached to or what type of fishing gear it was; NOAA will determine that in the future."

The whale was tangled up in fishing gear attached to a "high flyer," a thin, white pole attached to fish netting. Commercial fishing vessels typically use high flyers, Landry said.

The commercial vessels often use high flyers when there is fog since the fliers have radar reflectors, Landry said.

The whale had been tangled up in fishing line that was attached to something that was acting as an anchor, preventing the whale from swimming away, Landry said. That "anchor" is still at the bottom of the sea, he added.

Landry said authorities will look at the marks on the fishing gear and try to figure out where the gear came from.

"It could have become entangled hundreds of miles away and dragged the gear in or it could have become entangled right there, where we found it," he said. 

Efforts to track the gear are not being done "to place blame," Landry explained. "We're just trying to figure out where it came from and how this happened."

He said a lot of entanglements occur in fishing netting, lines and gear legally left behind to catch fish.

Landry said he and his team have been to New Jersey to disentangle whales only two or three times in last few years.

"Entanglements off New Jersey are relatively uncommon," he said. 

Federal officials are strongly advising that anyone who sees a marine mammal entangled, stranded or in distress in any way should contact authorities and not try to assist the animal themselves, said  Marjorie Mooney-Seus, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Marine Mammal Stranding Center, in Brigantine, was also on scene and photographed the rescue (see attached photos.)

Caption information: Juvenile humpback whale freed from a potentially life-threatening entanglement in fishing gear in the waters off NJ by members of the Center for Coastal Studies Marine Animal Entanglement Response team (CCS MAER). 
Pictured are Scott Landry (Director, CCS MAER program) and Jenn Tackaberry (CCS MAER team member, wearing helmet).

Credit: Photos by Danielle Monaghan of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center (MMSC)