NSRI untangles 12-metre Southern Right Whale caught in buoy
NATIONAL Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) crews rescued a 12-metre Southern Right Whale entangled with rope and a flotation buoy around the tail between Palmiet and Kleinmond.
On Sunday, NSRI Hermanus duty crew was activated following numerous calls from the public.
The sea rescue craft South Star, crewed by the NSRI Hermanus crew of Deon Langenhoven, James Janse van Rensburg, Bennetts Coetzee and Charl Henn; and the sea rescue craft Jaytee III, crewed by another NSRI Hermanus crew: Jean le Roux, Alwyn Geldenhuys and Andre Barnard, were launched, carrying the SA Whale Disentanglement Network (SAWDN) cutting gear.
On arrival, 50m off Kleinmond, they found an approximately 12m Southern Right Whale with rope and a flotation buoy entangled around the tail.
The sea rescue craft Jaytee III was attached to the whale and then used the cutting equipment to free all rope and the flotation buoy from the whale, which recovered in the calm sea conditions before swimming away, apparently healthy.
NSRI spokesperson Craig Lambinon said their teams have participated in entanglement efforts three or four times this year.
All were carried out successfully, with none of the animals dying.
“All over the world they do the same kind of thing,” he said.
“But this is not something we do very often.
“When we do the operations, they are successful,” Lambinon said.
He said the day before, the NSRI had made a rescue while conducting maritime training exercises in Simon’s Town, after a bird was found entangled in fishing gut and later freed.
Earlier this month, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing said that people who cut buoys from fishing gear, with the intention of removing the gear in which whales and other marine mammals might become entangled, could be doing more harm than good.
The department’s fisheries management branch said it was aware that some members of the public were cutting buoys from fishing gear in False Bay.
The buoys are markers, which indicate the position of the ends of lines of fishing gear lying along the sea floor.
Removing the buoys may result in slower retrieval times of the fishing gear, thus increasing the opportunity for entanglement of whales and other marine animals, it said.