A Rescue in the Fog

Entanglement Rates for Whales Are Much Higher than Commonly Believed

Photo Justin Taus
Photo Justin Taus

A dense early-morning fog set into St. Andrews’ harbour for a second consecutive day, making it difficult to see the end of the wharf from the shoreline.

For the boat named Quoddy Link, this meant deciding if the day’s whale watching tours would be postponed until afternoon or completely cancelled. For a juvenile minke whale located kilometres away off the coast of Blacks Harbour, the outcome of this decision would be a matter of life and death.

At noon the fog started to lift and, to the satisfaction of its couple-dozen passengers and crew, the catamaran left port at 1:30 p.m. and headed for the almighty Fundy Isles. The fog, now composed mostly of scattered, thick patches, provided hauntingly beautiful visuals of ghostly lighthouses and cliff edges, but made the task of spotting wildlife difficult. After a few hours on the water, no whales had yet been seen.

Then, just as the boat was scheduled to return to port, a minke whale was spotted just off of Bliss Island.

As the vessel slowly approached, however, it became clear that the whale’s behavior was unusual. While minke whales normally surface from a series of shallow dives before finally diving deep for three to five minutes, this one appeared to be resting just below the water’s surface. It seemed to be struggling to hold its rostrum and blowholes out of the water, without moving any considerable distance. This was the first time that the team of naturalists on board, including Danielle Dion, who has been collecting research on whales since 2002, had seen a whale behave this way.

Alarmed, the crew decided to investigate.

Upon reaching the whale’s side, the source of its problems became clear. The juvenile whale, estimated to be no more than a year and a half old at most, was anchored to the ocean floor by a rope looped tight around its lower jaw. With every breath, it struggled to lift whatever was at the opposite end of the rope just high enough to be able to reach the water’s surface before briefly diving, probably to alleviate the tension.

The crew alerted the Marine Animal Response Society (MARS), a charitable organization dedicated to marine mammal conservation that coordinates rescue missions in Atlantic Canada, who then dispatched the Campobello Whale Rescue team from the nearby Campobello Island.

With that, all of the eyes on the boat, many of them teary, turned towards the whale as the vessel slowly drifted away to give it space. Everyone on board was now a spotter, as it was important not to lose sight of the whale in the heavy fog as we stood by, awaiting the rescue boat. Tension rose as the whale began to dive for longer periods, and people feared it would drown. The only comfort came from knowing the tide was at its highest and that the whale was able to reach the surface.

Every year, an average of 12 entanglements are signaled to MARS, says Andrew Reid, response coordinator and treasurer for the organization. Ten have been reported so far in 2015, but most of them were in July, making it a busy month.

In the St. Lawrence gulf and river, a further three entanglements have been reported this year, two of them deadly. Both a minke and a fin whale were found lifeless in Quebec’s Gaspésie region according to Josiane Cabana of Marine Mammal Emergencies. One was entangled in a lobster trap while the other’s carcass showed entanglement scars. In total the organization has confirmed 29 entanglements in the St. Lawrence between 2010 and 2014.

In the United States, the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) has had 19 reported entanglements this year in the geographical region stretching from the Bay of Fundy down to Florida, according to Doug Sandilands, a member of the centre’s Marine Animal Entanglement Response team. Some of these reports may overlap with those of MARS, however, as rescue organizations share their information through the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network. Nine of the 19 entangled whales reported to the CCS have been successfully freed.

Nevertheless, Sandilands explains that the rates of reported entanglements nowhere near reflect the actual rates of occurrence. Research conducted by the CCS has found that 70 per cent of the humpback whales in the Gulf of Maine population have scars from at least one entanglement and that 10 to 15 per cent of the population acquires new scars in any given year, he says. When the number of reported entanglements is compared to the number of whales found to be scarred each year, it demonstrates that fewer the 10 per cent of entanglements are found and reported, he adds.

“Thus, given the 19 reported entanglements this year, we might expect that there were 190 total entanglements so far,” says Sandilands. “With a reporting rate somewhere under 10 per cent and disentanglement rate of around 50 per cent, it makes it clear that disentanglement is, alone, not a solution to the problem.”

While both Sandilands and Dion believe that the public awareness campaigns, the creation of hotlines for mariners to report entangled whale sightings and the existence of response units have been vital, they stress that it’s most important to continue research into developing fishing methods that do not entangle non-target species in the first place. On a related note, many fishermen have been reluctant to report entanglements altogether because of fears that they will lead to increased regulations of their fisheries, says Sandilands.

Eventually, the hum of another engine could be heard off the whale-watching vessel’s starboard side. Within minutes, the Campobello Whale Rescue Team’s large Zodiac boat ripped through the fog. Standing on its bow was Mackie Greene, a certified level-five first responder who trained with the CCS in Provincetown, MA. Over the years, he and his team have risked their lives again and again to rescue dozens of whales from entanglements.

The rescue team quickly navigated past the catamaran as shouts of encouragement rang out from some of the whale watchers. Within minutes, they were on top of the whale. Struggling to keep his balance while holding a long pole with a sharp blade at its extremity, Greene carefully waited for the perfect moment to attempt to sever the rope. At lightning speed he lowered the pole into the water, and seconds later he could be seen fighting against the powerful shaking of the whale’s head as it pushed to break free. Water splashed chaotically and the Zodiac was completely turned around by the whale’s sheer force.

And then, after a few very long seconds, complete calm had returned.

A voice came on over the loudspeaker, breaking the silence. “That whale is gone!”

A trail of fluke prints, made by the whale displacing water with its tail, could be seen for hundreds of yards into the distance. The passengers erupted into applause. Tears flowed once again as passengers and crew digested what had just happened and the success of the operation, which took less than two hours from start to finish.

“I can’t believe how lucky we were to find the whale in the fog, to be able to stay with him until help arrived, and that the whale was freed so quickly,” says Dion. “It was so hard to watch him struggle to surface and take a breath but I am very, very happy we found him and played a small role in saving him.”

Correction: In a previous iteration of this story, it incorrectly stated that the Quoddy Link Marina was the name of a boat. It is actually the name of the organization that runs the whale watches. The boat is just called the Quoddy Link. The Link regrets the error.