What to Know
- The whale was freed Wednesday and wasn't harmed
- In November, officials tried to cut the line but were unable to do so entirely, according to a news release
Crews have successfully disentangled a humpback whale that got caught in material in waters off New Jersey.
The juvenile whale — estimated to be more than 30-feet-long — was freed Wednesday. It had been spotted in the Raritan and Sandy Hook bays in recent days.
Officials say the whale had a piece of gill net — a type of netting used in commercial fishing — wrapped around its mouth, forming a closed loop around its blowhole.
In November, officials tried to cut the line but were unable to do so entirely, according to a news release. A piece of the net was still stuck around the whale’s upper jaw.
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Responders were unable to find the whale again until recently. The line became tighter as the animal grew.
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“If left alone, the animal had no chance,” said David Morin, NOAA Fisheries Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Coordinator, 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.”
Numerous responders — including federal, state and local authorities and a disentanglement team from the nonprofit Center for Coastal Studies — worked together Wednesday to free the whale. They used a custom-designed hook-shaped knife, attached to a roughly 15-foot-long pole, to slice the piece of netting.
The whale was not harmed.
New legislation in California was proposed with the intention of phasing out similar mile-long fishing nets that have put animals in danger.
