Juvenile Humpback Whale Freed

A juvenile Humpback whale has been successfully disentangled from fishing rope and flotation buoys in a challenging disentanglement operation on Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning, 17 June, NSRI station 24 Lamberts Bay, NSRI station 44 St Helena Bay and NSRI station 34 Yzerfontein, were alerted by SAWDN (SA Whale Disentanglement Network) following reports from a Purse Seiner fishing vessel offshore, North of Elands Bay, of a whale entangled in fishing rope and flotation buoys.

NSRI crew, trained by SAWDN, from all 3 NSRI stations responded to the NSRI Lamberts Bay station 34 rescue base where the NSRI rescue craft Spirit of Saldanha was launched accompanied by NSRI crew (who are all trained SAWDN crew) and accompanied by the specialized SAWDN cutting equipment.

Telkom Maritime Radio Services, NSRI EOC (Emergency Operations Centre) and NSRI headquarters operations assisted in communications and logistics.

On arrival in the area, of where the whale had been spotted, a search commenced and the 8 meter juvenile Humpback whale was located approximately 1 nautical mile offshore, 17 nautical miles South of Lamberts Bay.

The whale was found to have multiple wraps of fishing rope entangled around the tail fluke and caudal peduncle – and dragging flotation buoys.

The whale appeared to be tired and lethargic – most likely from being entangled for quite some time.

A kegging buoy and an extra flotation buoy were attached to the existing entangled fishing rope – in an effort to increase the whales buoyancy and to further limit movement of the whale – this was a precaution as already the whale was not moving around much.

It was obvious, said team leader – NSRI Yzerfontein’s Johan Liebetrau, that we would need to make quite a number of cuts because of the multiple wraps of fishing rope around the whale that we observed.

The NSRI rescue craft coxswain, Gerhard Visagie, gently maneuvered the NSRI rescue craft alongside the whale and our crew began the challenging task of cutting free the entangled fishing rope cautiously in efforts to prevent injury to the whale while maintaining safety on the NSRI rescue craft and NSRI/SAWDN crew.

The NSRI rescue craft followed the whale while cuts to the rope, using the specialized cutting equipment, were made at intervals.

The whale appeared to cooperate with the extensive efforts that were being employed to cut free the stubborn wraps of thick fishing rope.

In total 8 cuts were made before all fishing rope and flotation buoys were successfully cut free from the whale.
All of the fishing rope and flotation buoys were recovered for investigation and disposal by SAWDN and the Department of Environment.

Efforts were made to catch up with the whale after all wraps of fishing rope were cut free and recovered, said Johan, but the young whale had sped off, swimming confidently and diving, without hanging around and without any hesitation.

The team did incredibly well under challenging conditions and we are confident that the whale has survived.

The Purse Seiner fishing crew have been commended for raising the alarm and for getting accurate coordinates to SAWDN.