Net ‘tail’ real danger
Humpback may have been trapped all night
A HUMPBACK whale caught in shark netting off Burleigh Heads yesterday could have been tied up for hours, experts say.
And Sea World director of marine sciences Trevor Long revealed that the real worry is with whales that manage to break free of the bulk of the net that traps them, because remnants of rope and netting could cut them and lead to a painful, drawn-out death.
“These shark nets are indiscriminate killers. There’s whales, dolphins, turtles, dugongs – a whole range of animals caught,’’ he said.
Mr Long said a Sea World rescue crew worked with a marine animal release team from the Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol to free the whale in just over an hour.
“It broke through the net, taking a section with it and moving out to sea,” he said.
“Unfortunately we don’t know when it was caught. It could have hit the net at six o’clock last night and been caught the whole time, we’re not sure.”
The seven-metre, 20tonne whale was “completely enveloped in net” and rescuers faced a dangerous task to cut it away as the stressed humpback thrashed around.
The whale could be seen rolling around trying to free itself while rescue teams were nearby.
“This made it quite a delicate rescue,” Mr Long said.
“It was very tired and that allowed the rescue to go relatively easy.
“It’s only when you get an animal that’s just recently trapped that causes some problems.
“But the thrashing is normal – these animals are very distressed, as you can imagine. They’ve got a fear of drowning, just like we have. They don’t understand the situation. They just want to escape the net.”
The whale suffered cuts and “superficial damage’’ to the tail and rear of its torso, but Mr Long said it would not stop the animal continuing its migration north.
“I’d say it had a lot of lactic acid built up and that’s why it didn’t swim off immediately, and why it hung around in the water,” he said.
“The net was wrapped around the pectoral fins and then the tail. What Queensland Boating and Fisheries did was a very good job, they started at the head of the animal, worked their way back. We were fortunate just to be there at the end, just to pull the net off.”
He said rescuers were equipped with special tools to remove the net safely.
“The knives have a guarded blade. You can put the back of the knife up against the animal and slide it forward, and it picks up the net and cuts it without doing any damage to the animal.”
It was the second whale caught in shark nets this year.
“The entrapment situation of whales in shark nets along the Queensland coast is going to be problematic,’’ he said. “We’ve got over 30,000 whales passing our coast this year and it’s still increasing by 10 per cent.
“So from this point on, we will see more animals trapped.
“We make a plea to Government to look at this situation. A lot of precedents have been made to changes in shark net programs which haven’t affected bather safety.’’