The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration received a report of a humpback whale dragging an anchor line in the Seymour Canal near Admiralty Island on Wednesday. Saturday, the whale was spotted in Gastineau Channel. Monday morning, it was reported in the Tenakee Springs area.
The whale is still entangled and is dragging a couple of buoys. Julie Speegle with NOAA said whale entanglements have become fairly frequent because whale populations and the number of people on the water are increasing.
“Entanglements can cause a wide variety of problems for whales. (They) can inhibit their feeding, cause them to become fatigued because they’re dragging some extra gear along with their normal weight and sometimes even cause the whale to die,” Speegle said.
NOAA mobilized a team to try and remove the entangled line, Speegle said. They couldn’t remove it all and had to settle on attaching a green satellite buoy to the anchor line in order to track the whale.
Speegle said they’ll keep trying to untangle the line but it’s complicated because there’s a second humpback traveling with the entangled whale and they’re not sure if that whale is tied up, too.
“Today the whale is in the Tenakee Springs area,” Speegle said Monday morning. “Members of our Alaska Marine Mammals Stranding Network are responding. Ocean and weather conditions are good. We’re going to attempt to get some underwater video so we can learn more about that entanglement to see what would be the best way to respond.”
Speegle said NOAA’s team is specially trained to deal with whale entanglements and they have the right tools to do the job. Members of the public are asked to stay away from the whales and not to try and help. Speegle said freeing the entangled whale will be extremely dangerous work.
