Whale ‘anchored’ to seafloor for 10 days showed ‘incredible will’ to live, rescuers say
In early July, beachgoers in New South Wales, Australia, noticed something peculiar just offshore: a humpback whale that appeared to be floating motionless among the waves.
The massive animal — spotted off Iluka, a seaside village south of Brisbane — didn’t leave the area for 10 days, prompting concern and calls for help.
It turned out, it had been anchored to the ocean floor by thick fishing wire wrapped around its tail, causing its condition to deteriorate.
What followed was a complex rescue operation for the whale — an animal that displayed an “incredible will to survive,” according to a July 8 news release from the Sea World Foundation.
‘Most complicated’ rescue mission of the season
After receiving a report that a humpback whale was remaining stationary off Iluka on July 3, a Sea World team planned a rescue mission for the following morning.
Despite bad weather conditions — which included 11-foot waves and high winds — the team reached the animal, which measured 26 feet, by boat.
They spent four hours attempting to free the whale from its entanglement with “specialized cutting knives,” but were unsuccessful.
“It was quite confusing why we just could not release this line from under the animal,” Andy Mulville, a Sea World skipper, said in a video accompanying the release.
But after reviewing underwater video footage back onshore, they realized the whale was not entangled in rope, but in 20-millimeter-thick trawler wire, which could not be severed with normal equipment.
The team then formulated a plan with the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to send divers down to cut the wire.
On July 6, divers succeeded in severing the wire using underwater cutting tools. They cut the wire about a foot-and-a-half behind the animal’s tail, after which it swam away, continuing its northbound migration.
The multi-day mission ended up being the “most complicated whale disentanglement operation of the migration season,” according to the release.
Part of a recurring problem
Every summer, humpback whales migrate from the cold waters off Antarctica to the coast of Australia to mate and give birth, according to the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
Unlike populations that live closer to the equator, these whales are not considered endangered, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
During their journey some of them become ensnared in fishing gear — a phenomenon that has been increasing in occurrence in recent decades, according to a 2023 study in the journal Conservation Science and Practice.
Already, two other whales have been freed from entanglements off Australia this season.
These entanglements can be detrimental to whales, leading to infection, starvation, blood loss, strangulation and drowning, according to NOAA.
“Unfortunately, too often I think these become sort of happy stories when in fact whales getting entangled in anything is a bad news story,” Wayne Phillips, the head of marine sciences at Sea World Gold Coast, said.
“We hope that moving forward with more whales traveling up and down our coastline that we can have less gear in our oceans for them to interact with,” Phillips added.
This story was originally published July 9, 2024 at 11:46 AM with the headline "Whale ‘anchored’ to seafloor for 10 days showed ‘incredible will’ to live, rescuers say."