Posts Tagged ‘Entanglement’
Endangered humpback whale dies off Long Island, NY from fishing gear entanglement
Only four days ago, the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Team received a report of an entangled humpback whale off Long Island. Yesterday, that same whale was found dead. The young female appears to have died as a result of becoming entangled in gillnetting, a gear type that NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) exempted from…
Read MoreMore Protection Needed Against Sad Entanglements
Recently, a dead North Atlantic right whale was spotted off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina that appears to be a victim of entanglement – line can clearly be seen going through the mouth, wrapped through baleen, and extending along the body. The whale has been identified by the New England Aquarium as Patti, an adult male…
Read MoreLittle Whales in a Big Ocean
The beginning of the field season is always really exciting, as we see which whales are first to return, which mothers have calves this year, and hope that none of our beloved whales go missing! We’ve already seen incredible feeding displays and have a growing list of mothers that are returning with their calves to…
Read MoreWhales die slow death from fishing gear entanglement
Scientists working out of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have released data that shows ‘for the first time how fishing lines changed a whale’s diving and swimming behavior. The monitoring revealed how fishing gear hinders whales’ ability to eat and migrate, depletes their energy as they drag gear for months or years, and can result…
Read MoreChapter 86: The Tail
You can now listen to Dennis Minsky read Chapter 86: The Tailof Moby Dick. Dennis is a long-time naturalist aboard whale watching boats in the Gulf of Maine, so i can not imagine anyone better to read about the power and glory of whale tails then someone who has witnessed it for decades. Our intern,…
Read MoreWDC Boycotts Federally Mandated Harbor Porpoise Meeting
WDC was among the “no-shows” at last week’s Harbor Porpoise Take Reduction Team meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. Some conservationists as well as the entire delegation of experts from the science and academic community chose to “boycott” this meeting. The issue? A decision made by John Bullard, the Northeast Regional Administrator of the National Marine…
Read MoreEntanglements, Entanglements
WDC has always realized and celebrated the importance of responsible whale watching. One of the essential conservation outcomes of whale watching in the Gulf of Maine is the ability for whale watch companies to spot, report and stand by entangled whales until the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (PCCS) disentanglement teamcan respond. In fact, we…
Read MoreWDCS locates entangled humpback
On Friday, August 24th, most of the WDCS-NA office headed out on the vessel Easterly to document small vessel traffic in the vicinity of whales as part of our propeller scar project. As always, we document, and when possible, retrieve any marine debris we locate. Early in the trip, at approximately 11:15AM, we stopped to retrieve…
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