HALIFAX — Three critically endangered North Atlantic right whales have been spotted entangled in fishing gear off the United States’ eastern seaboard this month, a number that researchers say is "devastating but not unusual."
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says two of the three whales, both young males, are expected to die.
Entanglements and vessel strikes in U.S. and Canadian waters are the main causes of death of North Atlantic right whales, and scientists say fewer than 400 are in existence. They animals travel to Atlantic Canadian waters largely to feed, and they used to migrate more to the Bay of Fundy to eat plankton but have gradually migrated to the Gulf of St. Lawrence as ocean temperatures change.
Aerial surveillance teams spotted a juvenile male whale on Dec. 16 about 100 kilometres off the coast of North Carolina with several lines wrapping around its head and mouth. And on Dec. 9 an aerial survey crew spotted two entangled whales — an adult female and a juvenile male — within a few kilometres of each other about 80 kilometres southeast of Nantucket, Mass.
The agency says that if weather permits, its entanglement response teams will monitor the whales and determine whether they can try and free the animals.
Heather Pettis, a research scientist at the New England Aquarium in Boston, said that to have three entangled whales spotted in the last month is “devastating but not unusual.” The juvenile spotted in North Carolina is the 10th entangled whale sighting in 2024, she said.
“We know that even whales that manage to survive these entanglement events have long lasting repercussions,” she said in a phone interview Monday. “It impacts their ability to grow, it impacts females’ ability to reproduce, it can impact their ability to feed, which we suspect is happening with one of these recent cases.”
Mackie Greene, co-founder and director of the Campobello Whale Rescue program at the Canadian Whale Institute, says disentanglement efforts are no easy feat and often quite dangerous. Rescuers — who arrive in groups of three or four — need to get close enough to cut away tangled ropes. He said whales aren't aggressive but often get spooked when a rescue effort is underway and can sometimes be tempted to dive deeper into the water.
Joe Howlett, co-founder of the Campobello Whale Rescue Team, died while rescuing a North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2017.
“They’re not just going to lay there and let us do this,” Greene said in a phone interview Monday. “Every cut’s hard-fought.”
To free whales who get tangled in fishing lines, conditions must be near perfect. Rescue crews usually slow the whale down by grappling with the ropes entangling the animal, and attaching buoys to its body to keep it closer to the surface, he said. Then, crews use knives attached to long poles to cut tangled lines.
“Unfortunately, especially with right whales, they’re real difficult to get that close to and a lot of entanglements are through the mouth,” the part of the whale's body most difficult to access, Green said. Teams must be fast since the whales are often only on the surface for a few seconds to take a breath before they dive back down again, he added.
Greene estimates his organization — which rescues species such as the North Atlantic right whale, humpback and minke whales on Canada’s East Coast — has received 17 or 18 calls about whales entangled in fishing equipment this year.
As of October, scientists said there had been five confirmed deaths in 2024 of North Atlantic right whales, one of whom was killed after it had been entangled by rope for more than one year. Three other whales died after they were struck by vessels. The body of the fifth whale could not be retrieved, leaving scientists without information on how it died.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 23, 2024.
Cassidy McMackon, The Canadian Press
