Rescuers try to save humpback whale calf entangled in fishing line off Cape Cod

Graham Krewinghaus, Cape Cod Times
Updated ·2 min read

Editor's note: This story was updated on July 28, 2023, to correct an error in how the whale could be disentangled.

An attempt near Provincetown to disentangle a humpback whale calf from a fishing line was unsuccessful on Wednesday, Center for Coastal Studies officials said.

The fishing line is wrapped around the calf's flipper and could be life-threatening, they added, as the calf is still growing. Multiple agencies are participating in the effort to free the calf.

The Wednesday rescue attempt occurred in the southern part of Stellwagen Bank, a national marine sanctuary that extends a few miles north of Provincetown.

“We are doing everything that we possibly can,” Scott Landry said Friday.

Landry, the director of the Provincetown-based center’s Marine Animal Entanglement Response team, said that it is a difficult rescue because the calf and its mother are free swimming, and agencies rely on a hotline to tell them when and where entangled whales are spotted.

“It’s not like an ambulance call on land. We don’t know where to go until someone spots it and calls it in,” he said.

Humpback whales are on a federal watch list for an unusually high rate of death on the Atlantic Coast, since 2016.

The humpback whale Lollipop dives underwater, as seen from a Hyannis Whale Watcher Cruise. Lollipop's seven-month-old calf is dangerously entangled with a fishing line, and an attempt to free it Wednesday at Stellwagen Bank was unsuccessful, according to the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.
The humpback whale Lollipop dives underwater, as seen from a Hyannis Whale Watcher Cruise. Lollipop's seven-month-old calf is dangerously entangled with a fishing line, and an attempt to free it Wednesday at Stellwagen Bank was unsuccessful, according to the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.

The calf is around seven months old, Landry said, and its gender is not known. The calf’s mother is a humpback whale named Lollipop. This is her first known calf, according to Jon Brink of Hyannis Whale Watcher Cruises, a company that calls the entanglement hotline any time they see an entanglement while out on a whale watch trip.

According to Landry, the entanglement is from a high-strength fishing line on the calf’s left flipper. It was first seen entangled in late June, and since then there have been several attempts to free it.

Landry said the rescue effort includes the Center for Coastal Studies, the Marine Mammal Rescue Team at the International Fund of Animal Welfare, the Massachusetts Environmental Police and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Because of how fast the calf is growing, and the flipper being underwater and underneath the whale at all times, Landry said it has been near impossible to use the normal protocol to cut it loose.

The rescuers are now attempting to sedate the calf, in what Landry said is a strategy to get closer for longer than has rarely ever been tried.

The calf is still breastfeeding, which helps its natural immunity, Landry said. But when it is weaned off Lollipop toward the end of the year, the entanglement may sever its flipper or cause a severe infection that he said could kill the calf.

Landry said the agencies will continue to monitor the hotline 24/7 and respond any time a credible report comes in and the water is calm enough to approach whales.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Humpback whale calf entangled off Provincetown, rescue attempts fail