A humpback whale was freed after being badly entangled in fishing gear east of Hull on Sunday, officials said.
Fishermen spotted the young whale and notified the Coast Guard, according to the Center for Coastal Studies. As they waited for the center’s Marine Animal Entanglement Response team to arrive, the fishermen and Coast Guard lost track of the whale after it went underwater.
The whale managed to swim four miles southeast from where it was first spotted despite having hundreds of rope attached to its body, officials said.
“Once on scene, the [response] team assessed the approximately 30-foot whale and found that it had bitten down on the buoy line of fishing gear and the ropes had twisted around its head and tail,” the center said.
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The whale was still mobile enough to evade the team. But by throwing a grappling hook into the ropes, they began to disentangle the whale. Eventually the team, working from a small inflatable boat, pulled itself close enough to the whale to cut the rope using a 30-foot pole.
Soon after the ropes were removed, the whale swam away, officials said.
“There was nothing terribly unusual about this entanglement,” said Scott Landry, a center spokesman. “Unfortunately entanglements are now a regular occurrence for humpback whales. The disentanglement was a little bit challenging but it went very well.”
Young whales are typically unpredictable and tough to disentangle, Landry said. The whale that was freed Sunday was a calf with its mother last year.
The response team is also searching for Snow Cone, an entangled North Atlantic right whale whose mother and calf died after being hit by vessels. They believe she may be near Nantucket Shoals, but weather conditions in the area have not been suitable for the team to attempt to disentangle Snow Cone since she was last seen earlier this month.
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