December 20, 2015 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is getting a $20,000 grant that it will use to help make it safer for its staff members to respond to whale entanglements along the coast.

The grant from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund will be used to purchase an inflatable, soft-bottom boat that will be used by Marine Patrol to help free whales from ropes in the ocean, the state agency announced in a prepared statement released this week.

The agency currently uses one or more boats with rigid, v-shaped hulls to deal with entanglements, but such boats can pose a hazard both to whales and the people in the boats if the whale should surface underneath the vessel, according to Department of Marine Resources staff. The hard bottom is more likely to injure the whale, which already could be sick or injured, than a soft-bottom boat. A hard-bottom boat also is more likely to tip or capsize if the whale pushes it up out of the water.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News