Two entangled whales near Quadra Island were rescued by members of Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
The incident was reported last week, where on late-Thursday afternoon, they got a call from kayakers about a humpback whale entangled by an orange buoy with a companion close to it between Quadra Island and Reid Island.
A whale rescue team was dispatched Friday morning, working with Straitwatch, a program that monitors all vessels around whales, on this incident.
Marine mammal coordinator Paul Cottrell says through a drone, they noticed it was a terrible situation.
“The one animal was entangled around its peck, with a long, long trailing line that loops around the eye, and entangled the other whale through the mouth,” said Cottrell.
“It was just an awful situation given that they had to be pretty close together so they wouldn’t be hurting each other.”
Cottrell says the whales were traveling 5 to 7 knots in unison. With the complexity of dealing with 2 whales, the team had to take their time and figure out an understanding of how they would react.
After getting that understanding, they decided to put in a working line to try and remove the gear, which they were able to do in the first grapple, according to Cottrell.
“Whenever you add drag to rear, they react negatively. So that was also the case with these two animals, and we wanted to make sure that they were going to be ok with adding that drag on, and they were,” said Cottrell.
“We were able to loosen the ropes, and the turning gear was coming out of the mouth of the one animal, so we knew it was working. We added additional drag by grabbing the buoy and then putting them onto the boat. After 20 minutes, we could feel the rope coming off, and all of the buoy came off.”
He says the operation involved 2 vessels and took 5 hours.
While they think one of the whales got entangled before its companion got caught up in it, they say it’s hard to know based on the kayakers’ observations.
He adds one of the whales was spotted swimming freely in Alert Bay, believing that both animals will be fine moving forward.
If you do see an entangled whale in distress, you are asked to call them at 1-800-465-4336.
