Federal rescuers are looking for an entangled humpback whale in the Salish Sea, which experts say is the latest incident in an increasingly common problem.
The three-year-old whale, named Vector, was last spotted on Friday near Campbell River off the east coast of Vancouver Island. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says it and its partners have been actively searching for the animal.
Paul Cottrell, a marine mammal co-ordinator with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, worries that the entanglement of what appear to be ropes on Vector’s dorsal fin and body could become lethal if the gear is not removed.
“It’s tight to the animal, so we’re really concerned that this is going to be a difficult one,” he said.
This problem is also not surprising, especially as whale populations recover from being commercially hunted, according to marine experts.
“We’re so fortunate that they’ve come back from the brink of extinction — as a result of whaling — and there are more on the coast,” said Jackie Hildering, a humpback researcher and co-founder of the Marine Education & Research Society. Her organization was the first to share photos and information about Vector’s entanglement online.
But “what this means is there’s a greater overlap with fishing gear and also vessel traffic.”
Cottrell said his team has seen, on average, 15 to 30 confirmed whale entanglements annually off the coast of B.C. since 2019. These cases also include killer and gray whales, but humpbacks make up most of them.
“We have been very busy the last five years,” he said.
“But I think a big part of that is we have a lot more humpbacks in our area, which is a good news story.”
As Fisheries and Oceans continues its search for Vector, Cottrell urged the public to call 1-800-465-4336 if they spot the whale, which has a unique dorsal fin. Once the animal is located, he said his team would use drones to properly look at the entanglement and figure out how to cut it off.
A Department of Fisheries and Oceans team rescued a humpback whale off B.C.’s Central Coast that was caught in over 120 metres of rope.
Hildering’s organization has similarly shared this call for help on its social media, though cautioning that people should maintain a distance of at least 200 metres from the whale if it’s sighted.
The researcher also hopes that this search for Vector will raise more awareness about the issue of whale entanglement, as many cases are not detected.
“Nobody wants to hurt a whale. We are never going to find them all, so let Vector also be an ambassador for all the whales that are never detected.”