Officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are monitoring a humpback whale seen off Newport Beach and Dana Point last weekend and Monday that could be the same whale entanglement teams have tried to free in recent weeks.
Only this time, the humpback seems to be clear of the bait traps and fishing line seen on it since August.
Whale watching boats from Newport Beach and Dana Point have compared photos taken during disentanglement efforts to photos of the whale taken in the last few days. The whale has distinctive markings and dorsal fin.
Justin Viezbicke, marine mammal stranding coordinator for NOAA, said Tuesday he is monitoring the whale.
“It’s hard to say at this point for sure what has happened,” he said. “Even if the gear off the flipper is no longer visible we don’t know for sure until we get better footage. Hopefully, the whale will hang out a while longer so we can continue to monitor.”
Drone footage taken Saturday showed the whale with line still entangled. But when Ryan Lawler, a boat captain on Newport Coastal Adventures, took drone footage on Sunday of the humpback feeding with a pod of dolphins, the line seemed to be gone.
“There was no line anywhere to be seen on the whale,” he said. “The whale was behaving like it was feeding, and keeping up a good pace. Putting all those things together to evaluate the whale from the drone, it appeared to me it showed a disentanglement.”
Dave Anderson, who operates Capt. Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari, said two of his captains spotted the whale on Monday when it came up and “mugged the boat” – or took over the water near the boat.
Video and photos taken from the boat’s underwater pod also indicate that there is no more entanglement.
The whale originally had rope wrapped around its left pectoral fin. The rope went around the whale’s body and through its mouth.
Anderson, who had been on previous disentanglement efforts and is part of NOAA’s trained disentanglement team, said the fishing line was so tightly wrapped that it appeared to dig into the whale’s skin. It also had a buoy line that had been attached to it by rescue teams. But that line might have been cut off during other attempts to free it near Central California.
“The whale watch community has been very good about documenting this animal, and we’ve been able to compare videos and photographs,” Anderson said. “The video that was shot Sunday by Ryan (Lawler) showed the whale swimming in a pod of dolphins feeding. That is a pretty good sign. It’s amazing it might be free.”
If it is free, Anderson said, the result is a perfect scenario.
“Nobody had to risk their life to free it,” he said.
The Marine Animal Entanglement Response network last week determined it could not get close enough to the creature to help. The animal had – and still has – lice all over its body, an indication that it’s not in good health. The line in the mouth could have been making it difficult to feed.
Data from NOAA shows that the number of entanglements has increased in recent years. Last year, 61 whales were reported entangled off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California, the highest number since NOAA began keeping records in 1982.
Since January, about 40 whale entanglements off California have been reported, putting 2016 on track for another record-breaking year.
On average, about 10 whales were reported entangled off the West Coast annually from 2000 to 2012. Humpback whales are the most commonly entangled whale species on the West Coast, according to NOAA.
Contact the writer: lconnelly@ocregister.com and eritchie@ocregister.com
