July 13, 2018 — A rescue team has saved a juvenile humpback whale that had been entangled in a line for months in an operation Wednesday off the New Jersey coast, the federal fisheries agency said Thursday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries agency said the whale was the same one that was seen swimming in Raritan Bay on July 4.
The first report of the entangled whale came last November, but a team’s attempt to cut the line was only partially successful, and a tight wrap of line remained around its upper jaw, NOAA said, adding that it was “wrapped around especially sensitive locations, including the eye and blowhole.”
On Wednesday, a team from the Cape Cod-based Center for Coastal Studies was able to make a delicate cut to disentangle the whale off Sandy Hook.
“If left alone, the animal had no chance,” David Morin, NOAA Fisheries’ Atlantic large whale disentanglement coordinator, said in a statement. “The whale would have died a slow and painful death. Even in response, the tight wrap left such a small area — about a foot or two wide — that we could cut.”