#disentanglement

Humpback whale season is underway in Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary

Sightings of the colossal marine mammals peak between the months of January and March, then gradually decline until humpback season ends in early May. Each year provides opportunities for whale watching, research, and citizen science, and the need for entanglement response.

Read about this year’s especially eventful season here: https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/feb22/season-of-sanctuary.html

[Portrait of Barney Calhoun, done in black and white. He looks unhappy.]

“Would tell ya to be sitting down for this, but I guess ya already are.” Barney laughs humorlessly. “Resonance Cascade was almost 20 years ago. The anniversary’s two weeks from now.”

[Portrait of Adrian Shephard, done in black and white. They look scared.]

Fluoride - Disentanglement

To Live a Lie

Throwback: Bart the Gray Whale’s Disentanglement:

Capt. Dave and his wife were headed to dinner with friends one evening in March 2012, when they received a call from one of their vessels that a Gray Whale with a huge amount of gillnet wrapped around its tail flukes had been spotted.  They quickly abandoned their plans and headed to Dana Point Harbor where they met up with volunteer members of Capt. Dave's crew, Tom Southern, Mark Tyson and Steve Plantz. They embarked on one of their smaller whale watching boats to see the entangled whale and attempt to help it before it got dark.   

After getting permission from National Marine Fisheries Service they quickly attached a buoy with a strobe light to the whale in the hopes they might be able to stay with the whale through the night and begin the disentanglement process in the morning. Plans went temporarily awry around 9 PM when the whale somehow managed to break free of the buoy and light and the crew members were now unable to follow the whale in the dark.     

They made the decision to try the impossible and attempt to attach another buoy on the whale in the dark. The engines were shut off and crew listened for the whale with only a small flashlight for lighting. In what Capt. Dave called their 'first miracle', they were able to relocate the whale and re-attach the buoy after two hours. Knowing that the next day would be a very long one, Gisele Anderson placed a call to another team member, Peter Bartholomew, and asked if he would 'babysit a whale through the night' so the " disentanglement  team" could come back and get some rest before the strenuous day that was ahead. Bartholomew readily agreed, rallied two other volunteers (Hank Davis and Gary Weiberg) and headed out to sea to truly 'whale watch' throughout the cold night until daylight the next day. Early the next morning, the original team from Capt. Dave's  Dolphin and Whale Safari, assembled and were joined by Dana Friedman and Scott Davis from the Pacific Marine Mammal Center (PMMC), and Capt. Dave's friends Barry Curtis and Mike Johnson. Curtis and Friedman provided their Rigid Bottom Inflatables for the procedures.   

Bartholomew's team handed off the whale they had watched throughout the night and the disentanglement team decided to name the whale "Bart" to honor Bartholomew's efforts. Working with specialized disentanglement equipment, Capt. Dave led the team through a dramatic effort that continued all day, until shortly before dark.  Anderson observed a vast array of dead marine life called "by-catch" caught in the estimated 50-feet of netting.  What happened next was nothing short of astonishing. The team wasn't sure they would be able to finish the job with time running out before dark when one of the control lines snapped.  'Bart' submerged, taking four huge buoys with him like a scene from 'Jaws'.  When he surfaced one minute later, the pull of the buoys had broken off the last of the partly severed ropes and netting and Bart was free.   'Bart' went first to the second support vessel and swam close by and underneath it several times.  

This NOAA team spent Valentine's Day disentangling a humpback whale from 550 feet of line and marine debris off the coast of Maui.

Whale disentanglement is a challenging task that requires the innovative tools, unshakable teamwork, and sometimes agonizing patience.

Check out this Earth Is Blue video to see a NOAA-led response team hard at work: https://youtu.be/PiGpCniujng

How a Bamboo Knife was Altered to Save Entangled Whale Calves

Read the full story at: https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/mar21/new-disentanglement-tool.html

The waters around the Hawaiian Islands, including Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, serve as the principal breeding and calving grounds for a majority of the humpback whales in the North Pacific, resulting in the entanglement of newborn whale calves — some even as young as only a few weeks old.

After encountering an entangled whale calf in the sanctuary in February 2013, the whale disentanglement crew quickly realized that their existing tools would be unable to get to the embedded wrap. This called for innovation in disentanglement gear.

Today for #WhaleWeek we are talking about entanglement. This global problem affects many marine mammals and can be fatal.