There was no shortage of humpback whale entanglements off Newfoundland this summer.
“We were busy for a while, May, June and July. In the north there were a lot of whales with fishing gear on them. I think we had 20 whales,” said Wayne Ledwell, co-director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Whale Release and Strandings group.
“The fishing gear was a combination of snow crab gear, herring nets, lobster gear, pretty much everything. Some of the gear we couldn’t figure out where it came from because there was no VIN number to track it,” said Ledwell, adding for the most part the gear was local.
In some cases, fishermen were actively fishing when the whale got entangled, said Ledwell. “We took six whales out of gear this year. A few of them were hard.”
One whale had become entangled in crab gear and had towed 35 snow crab pots all into a ball while another in Trinity had derelict gear tangled into some new gillnets that was all balled up around it, including balled up twine, lead rope everything, recalled Ledwell.
“The ones we mostly get called to now are complicated entanglements, they’ve got a lot of stuff on them. In a lot of cases, offshore snow crab fishers might get a whale caught and might just cut their losses and cut it off and the whales show up inshore with the gear on them. When these whales get entangled offshore, they will come ashore with the rest of the whales because the capelin is coming, they follow the capelin. There might be reports from tow boats, recreational boats, hikers, fishers that whales are in fishing gear. We try to get somebody to stand by the whale until we get out there. That’s pretty much the only time we can find these animals. The ocean is so big and they can just go anywhere. The ones that are towing fishing gear, it’s hard. You’re chasing them around. It’s like trying to catch a rabbit in the woods with your bare hands,” Ledwell said.
“Once we get to them, we figure out how to get them out. They are powerful animals. We had some whales towing 200 metres of rope, which is a dangerous thing. There are a lot of people with recreational boats. If that rope gets into prop, once it gets tangled, your boat is going under no two ways about it,” warned Ledwell.
Even large fishing boats are impacted.
“This summer we had a whale that was first reported in one area, then off St. John’s. A 45-foot longliner coming in from crab fishing got caught up in this whale. It got tangled up in the stabilizer and started swinging the boat around. Just before we got there, the skipper on the boat said the whale is gone, they cut the line and let the whole thing go. We went out afterwards and found the whale and took the gear off it,” said Ledwell.
“We had a similar situation on the Grand Banks where the whale got caught in their crab gear and then in the stabilizer. The fishermen started getting water over the rail. They are dangerous like that,” Ledwell added.
While Newfoundland is home base for the world’s largest population of humpback whales every year between May and September, one or two North Atlantic right whales might also be spotted. “We had a right whale come into a harbour this year. They don’t very often come to Newfoundland. Every year we might get one or two that show up,” said Ledwell.
In the interest of public safety, not to mention the health of the animal, Ledwell said it’s important to report entanglements. “We put out an alert if one is spotted and get them to stand by the whale so we can find it.”
Started in 1979, the Newfoundland and Labrador Whale Release and Strandings is the oldest whale entanglement program in the world.
The program, funded through contract with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), has multi-purpose objectives: to assist fishermen in the release of whales and other large marine animals from fishing gear, thereby decreasing fishing downtime and damage to their gear; to release entrapped animals as quickly and safely as possible; to collect information from fishermen and communities about marine animals which inhabit the waters around them and to add to scientific knowledge on these species in Newfoundland and Labrador waters.
More information about the Newfoundland and Labrador Whale Release and Strandings group can be found online at https://newfoundlandlabradorwhales.net/ .
