Seeing a humpback leaping out of the sea is typically a celebratory spectacle for boaters who get to witness nature’s beauty up close.
But for a whale spotted the past few days with a line wrapped around its pectoral fin and stuck in its mouth, it’s a worrisome sight and a somber reminder of human impact on sea life as people helplessly watch the humpback desperately trying to free itself.
“It is really upsetting. The breach, that’s one of those quintessential nature moments. But to see it with this tinge of sadness, it’s so disheartening,” said Matt Stumpf, a boat captain with Dana Point-based Capt. Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Watching.
Stumpf said he first spotted the entangled whale near San Clemente on Saturday, Dec. 7, but didn’t at first realize it was in distress.
For months, humpbacks have been showing up in big numbers off local waters. So when he saw one that looked especially active, he took passengers over to check it out.
The humpback jumped out of the water several times just before sunset and the boat had to head back home. But when he got back to the dock and looked through his images, he noticed the line wrapped around its fin and a huge scar on its flipper.
He said he immediately contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s West Coast Large Whale Entanglement Response team, which gathered information to set out the following day to try and find the whale.
Early Sunday, Stumpf said he saw the same whale further up the coast near Newport Beach, immediately alerting rescue teams.
Throughout the day Sunday, rescue and response teams and whale-watching boats took turns tracking the humpback, watching it closely so it stayed in sight.
But trying to remove the line proved too risky.
Justin Viezbicke, who leads the NOAA response, said in a social media post that it was a “particularly difficult situation because the trailing line is only body length on both sides and is very difficult to access.”
“In this case the cut that needs to be made is between the mouth and the right pec fin … which is a very small window right by the head /eye,” he said. “This area is really difficult to access and is extremely dangerous as we have to be pretty much right next to the whale when it surfaces to get a knife on the again difficult target zone.”
What the team can do for now is monitor the whale and hope the line moves, or the whale is able to break the line, he noted.
The good news, for now, is this particular whale is feeding and looks healthy, Stumpf said.
“My hope is the injury doesn’t get any worse and it can continue on and it doesn’t become a statistic,” he said. “Maybe we’ll see this whale next year, or the next couple months or days and it’s doing fine. Maybe it will free itself, we’ve seen whales free themselves and they are success stories.”
Newport Coastal Adventure Captain Delaney Trowbridge stayed with the whale for hours on Sunday and said the entanglement is difficult to see unless the whale is breaching.
“It’s terribly sad to see such a beautiful animal in distress and hopefully in the coming days and weeks, an attempt at freeing this young whale can occur,” she said.
There’s a humpback in Monterey Bay, Lefty, that likely suffered a similar entanglement, its entire pectoral fin now gone, she said.
“That whale is healthy and fine, and we see him pass by here once in a blue moon. The pectoral fin is certainly in the most jeopardy of being lost. But it still can survive,” she said.
Keeping tabs on humpback whales is challenging, given their ability to move 60 to 80 miles in just one day.
This humpback’s best identifier is its black tail, a white scratch mark on the lower left side, Trowbridge said.
The hope is that food is plentiful enough off the Southern California coastline that the whale sticks around because it has a better chance to receive help from the rescue network here, Trowbridge said, but once it moves south, there are few resources that can help.
“It’s definitely important for people to keep an eye out now,” she added, “the earlier the sighting, the better chances it has of being rescued.”
Report sightings of entangled whales to 877-SOS-WHAL. Take photos and videos from a safe distance, but do not attempt to remove the gear, officials say.
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