Divers rescue subadult humpback whale off Hawaii
Cetacean had been entangled in heavy gauge fishing gear
HONOLULU: A number of private boats helped a team of federal responders free a young humpback whale from heavy gauge fishing gear off Hawaii, officials said yesterday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a joint statement that the ‘‘subadult’’ humpback was first spotted Thursday morning by a dive boat off Maui.
The dive boat alerted officials that the whale was struggling, and NOAA’s Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary coordinated a rescue effort with the US Coast Guard and others. Several private boats, including a commercial fishing vessel, tracked the whale while waiting for officials to arrive.
The US Coast Guard arrived and attached a tracking beacon to the whale in case they were not able to immediately remove the debris.
NOAA’s Ed Lyman, the sanctuary’s whale entanglement coordinator, was part of the team that cut the gear away from the whale. The whale was dragging about 150m of gear and the thick line was ‘‘deeply embedded’’ in the whale’s mouth, he said.
Lyman said when this happens officials will leave a portion of the line where it is to prevent further injury. The line usually falls out on its own once the weight of the entangled debris is removed, he said.
The team was able to cut the line from the whale ahead of its tail, which reduces the risk of it getting further entangled. The whale was ‘‘moderately emaciated’’ and had light skin and carpets of whale lice on it, Lyman said. ‘‘Those are all indicators that it had been carrying this gear for some time, likely months,’’ he said.
It is possible the whale migrated from Alaska or another northern feeding ground with the gear already attached. The trap line that was found in the whale was of a kind typically used to catch crabs and other bottomdwelling sea creatures and fish in the north Pacific. —