Young whale freed from rope entanglement

Marine Connection was happy to receive the news recently from colleagues in Hawaii that a young whale had successfully been freed - cut loose from hundreds of yards of plastic rope that ran through the animals' mouth, around the head and behind its blowhole.

This was not the most positive start to the life of this young whale, believed to have been born only last year. The rope could have easily killed the yearling whale as it would have interfered with its feeding over time also of course there was the chance that the animal would have grown into the rope as it matured.

Marine Connections' Liz Sandeman comments; "Whales face life-threatening entanglement from similar ropes on a regular basis so we are delighted with this outcome. Rescues such as this are not always guaranteed to be succressful and the charity congratulates everyone involved in this difficult and dangerous task."

During the rescue operation the whale had to be slowed from 5mph to 2mph by weighing it down with buoys and a sea anchor. Then using a specially designed 24-foot-long pole to position a folding knife around the rope on the whale's back and attaching a knife to another sea anchor to pull the knife through the rope the whale was freed within 15 minutes. The animal was first spotted in trouble by a whale watching vessel and although about a hundred yards of the yellow, polypropylene line came free, several hundred yards were still attached.

It was impossible to attempt to free the whale for several days due to rough sea conditions and rescue efforts were also made more difficult by the presence of two adult whales travelling with the juvenile, swimming on either side of the young whale. The young animal was initially tagged to allow the rescue team to follow it over a period of time before being able to rescue it at Penguin Bank, a submerged shelf extending from western Molokai.