Federal fisheries officials and conservation groups have been working to locate and free three humpback whales entangled in fishing gear around Vancouver Island and the central coast over the past five days.
Two humpbacks dragging prawn traps and gear were reported and located over the weekend, but rescuers have since lost contact with both.
Another entangled humpback was reported on Tuesday on the north coast. It was located late Wednesday afternoon and rescuers were near Gil Island trying to free the whale from several metres of seine netting and rigging.
Tristan Ray-Wilks of the Cetus Research and Conservation Society was driving a assistance vessel as a Department of Fisheries and Oceans Marine Mammal Rescue team attempted to free two humpbacks identified as Checkmate and X-Ray on Saturday and Sunday.
Ray-Wilks said Checkmate slipped away before the gear could be removed and a satellite tracking buoy attached.
DFO officials, however, were able to remove some rope and put a tracking device on the gear entangling X-Ray, a younger whale. However, they lost communication with the device on Wednesday, said DFO marine mammal co-ordinator Paul Cottrell. The agency is asking boaters and pilots to keep an eye out for the whale.
Removing fishing gear is a complicated, time-consuming and arduous task as officials deal with water conditions, the sheer bulk of the whales, myriad ropes, floats and traps and the fact that the animal is completely submerged most of the time.
“We want to help all of these whales and we are extremely grateful to our rescue crews, the coast guard and all the NGOs assisting us in this,” Cottrell said.
The process typically takes several hours — often days — to complete, and the floats dragging behind the entangled whales are key to tracking them, Ray-Wilks said.
In Checkmate’s case, someone probably thought they were doing the whale a favour by cutting the float away. They didn’t, Ray-Wilks said.
Checkmate was south of Sutil Channel off Quadra Island and had a crab trap near its mouth and a rope over its right pectoral fin. The rope was tight and efforts to remove it were not successful before the sun went down and the whale disappeared, Ray-Wilks said.
“Checkmate is not being tracked so we hope someone reports him [again],” he said.
If the gear isn’t removed, the whale could develop infections from the rope cuts, and the rope through its mouth could impede its ability to feed. It could take up to a year to die, either from the infections or starving, Ray-Wilks said.
On Sunday, DFO got an entanglement report for X-Ray, a humpback calf travelling with its mother. The younger whale was dragging a prawn trap and buoy and several hundred feet of rope near Campbell River. Like Checkmate, it had a line through its mouth.
Ray-Wilks said much of the trailing line was cut away over a period of about 10 hours, reducing drag for X-Ray, and a tracking device was installed. During that time, the whales and rescue crews travelled about 40 nautical miles to Kelsey Bay off Sayward. Crews were continuing the disentanglement Wednesday as X-Ray headed toward Port McNeill.
Ray-Wilks said he’s collected about 60 drifting traps, gear and “ghost nets” in the past five years.
“When people ask ‘What can I do to help?’ I always say the same thing: If you come across an entangled whale, leave the animal be, get some identification shots of its tail, call the DFO hotline. Cutting any floats or any visible gear off is sealing the animal’s fate,” said Ray-Wilks, noting it’s how rescuers often attach tracking devices.
“And it’s very dangerous. Whales can pull an incredible amount of weight and can pull you underwater in a heartbeat.”
Entanglements can be reported to the DFO hotline at 1-800-465-4336.
