Massive humpback whale rescued
Three humpback whale rescues in two weeks.A humpback whale measuring almost 15-metres long was saved from possible drowning on Sunday.
The whale, entangled in commercial crabbing gear and tackle, was spotted floundering off the coast of Ucluelet, about 40 km south of Long Beach Lodge Resort. The recreational boater, who spotted the enormous whale at about 10:00 am on June 28, immediately reported the whale’s situation to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).
According to the local Westerly News newspaper, DFO Pacific Marine Mammal Coordinator Paul Cottrell relayed the information to Tofino whale watching company Jamie’s Whaling Station who tracked and observed the whale while Cottrell and local DFO officers assembled their gear and prepared their watercraft.
“It was great that Jamie’s Whaling Station was able to keep the eye until we got out there ... they were fantastic and we really appreciate their efforts,” Cottrell told the Westerly News.
“That’s the key; you have to have an eye on the animal ... If they lose the eye then it’s really difficult to find it again; it’s a huge ocean out there.”
The DFO team reached the whale around 1:30 p.m. They hooked buoys onto the entangled lines the animal was towing and exhausting it. The goal was to prevent the whale from diving and then disappearing, becoming further entangled, or lacking the energy to resurface.
View the DFO-supplied video of the rescue effort below.
According to Cottrell, it was a long ordeal, taking approximately seven hours to tire the whale so the DFO team could get close and disentangle it.
“It was a huge animal, one of the biggest we’ve ever disentangled; it was 45-50 feet. It was massive,” Cottrell told the Westerly News. “Once we got up close to the animal, and we knew it was fairly exhausted, there was a whole bunch of weight pulling down the tail fluke so we couldn’t get the tail fluke up high enough to use our specialized cutting knife to cut the last few wraps. We had to really work hard and pull that tail up,” he said.
Once freed from its entanglements, the whale swam away relieved.
“It had a burst of energy and it was probably relieved not to have all that weight pulling it down,” Cottrell said.
Third humpback rescue in two weeks
According to Cottrell, it was the third successful humpback rescue his DFO team has executed in the past two weeks after having gone roughly five months without one. He attributed the surge in rescues to aware boaters being out on the water.
“We’re successful because these people are making these quick calls and getting us involved right away,” he said.
“The boating community out here is great and they’re doing that extra effort to make sure the right people are called. It’s wonderful and it makes our jobs so much easier.”
Cottrell said DFO is aware of at least one other entangled whale off the West Coast and he urges anyone who sees this animal, or any marine mammal in distress, to immediately report their sighting to the Marine Mammal Hotline: 1-800-465-4336
1-800-465-4336 FREE.He added anyone who spots an entangled animal must stay a safe distance away and never try to disentangle it themselves.
