Rescuers on Tuesday resumed their effort to save a blue whale entangled in potentially lethal fishing gear off the coast of California.
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The whale was first spotted about 30 miles (48 km) off San Diego over the weekend and then again on Monday by the crew of a whale-watching tour vessel near Dana Point, about 65 miles to the north, dragging about 100 feet of fishing lines and buoys.
Anderson and Southern were able to pull their commercial whale watching boat close enough to the mammal to cut away some of the rope, which was wrapped around the whale’s mouth and fins.
The ocean giants rarely swim close to shore.
“This is the first time we’ve ever tried to untangle a blue whale before off the West Coast”, Milstein said.
Teams typically help disentangle grey whales, which are much smaller than blue whales. It is trailing the blue lines, an orange buoy and two smaller floats.
Per National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration policy, boaters and agencies are asked to stand by entangled whales to help rescue teams locate the creatures more quickly.
He said the whale appeared to be exhausted and moving very slowly. It’s a marked jump from 2000 to 2012, when an average of just eight whales were entangled each year. There were 39 other incidents in 2015 in which NOAA couldn’t identify what caused the entanglement.
There are 10,000 to 25,000 blue whales in the world, according to The World Wildlife Fund. These endangered species are considered the largest and loudest animals on Earth, with natural habitats off the coast of California, Chile and the Coral Triangle near Indonesia.
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Reports of West Coast whale entanglement this year are on pace to break records for the third straight year, she added.
