‘He was a great fella, and he really cared’
MAN WHO SAVED WHALES DIED IN HIS LATEST ATTEMPT J
oe Howlett always knew it could end this way. He’d tell you if you asked. “You get pumped up,” he said in an interview years ago, “because you could die at any time.”
Howlett, a fisherman who dedicated his life to saving whales, died Monday in the rough Atlantic waters off his New Brunswick home. He was 59 years old.
“He was a great fella,” said his friend Mackie Green, “and he really cared about the whales.”
Howlett lived his life like Ahab in reverse. He made a living fishing lobster and scallops. But it was the whales that drove him.
For more than 15 years, he pushed himself into the ocean over and over again. He boarded fishing boats and research vessels. He put his life on the line to cut whales free from deadly fishing wire.
Barb Cartwright watched Howlett save an endangered North Atlantic right whale in 2007. He sat near water level with his team, in a Zodiac, for more than six hours waiting for a chance to strike. When it came, they didn’t hesitate.
“It happened so fast and over the water we could hear Joe scream, ‘We got it, we got it,’” Cartwright told a local paper at the time. “And then, ‘I was born to do this.’”
Howlett helped save about two dozen whales in all, his friends believe, slipping each free from the lines that trapped them. Just last week, he freed another whale not far from his home on Campobello Island. It was the last successful rescue of his daring life.
On Monday, Howlett boarded a federal Fisheries Department vessel off Shippagan to help cut lines from a right whale that had become entangled in a heavy snarl of rope, Green said.
Green was not on the boat, but said he was told his friend was hit by the whale just after it was cut free and started swimming away.
“They got the whale totally disentangled and then some kind of freak thing happened and the whale made a big flip,” said Green, who started the Campobello Whale Rescue Team with Howlett in 2002 and worked closely with him since.
“Joe definitely would not want us to stop because of this. This is something he loved and there’s no better feeling than getting a whale untangled, and I know how good he was feeling after cutting that whale clear.”
Federal Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc issued a statement Tuesday offering his sympathies to Howlett’s family and friends.
“We have lost an irreplaceable member of the whale rescue community,” LeBlanc said, adding such rescues can be dangerous.
“Taking part in whale rescue operations requires immense bravery and a passion for the welfare of marine mammals ... There are serious risks involved with any disentanglement attempt. Each situation is unique, and entangled whales can be unpredictable.”
The minister confirmed Howlett was working with federal conservation officers and the Canadian Coast Guard. As well, he said Howlett was aboard a smaller “fast response” vessel when the rescue was taking place.
Jerry Conway of the Canadian Whale Institute in Campobello, N.B., said the death is a great loss to the community of fishermen and scientists who work to help whales trapped in fishing gear or struck by ships — the greatest threats to the endangered right whales.
“He is a very knowledgeable fishermen, and who better to do disentanglements than a fisherman who knows the knots and the ropes and the gear?” he said.
“He’s going to be sorely missed by the community and he was an integral part of a very unique group of fishermen here on the island who were involved in doing the disentanglements.”
Howlett was the skipper of the research vessel Sheila, which was used to study right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Conway said. In the past month, seven right whale carcasses have been found floating in the Gulf. Tests showed one died after becoming entangled in fishing gear. Injuries on two others were consistent with ship strikes, researchers said.
Howlett left the Sheila and took his rescue gear onto the Fisheries vessel after this latest whale was spotted in the Gulf.
“He was very committed to this and he was very concerned about the state of the oceans,” Conway said.
Green said Howlett was originally from Chester, N.S., but moved years ago to Campobello Island, where he started a family and got involved in the scallop and lobster fisheries.
Friends say the death will be keenly felt on the small island of about 850 people, where Howlett was known for his humour, big laugh and generosity.
“The whole island’s in mourning here,” Green said. “Joe was the life of the party. He was always upbeat, laughing, telling jokes, so the whole island’s at a desperate loss.”