Record numbers of whales are showing up along the California coastline with fishing line tangled around their blubbery bodies, in a trend that’s bedeviled fishermen, environmentalists and state regulators alike.
The entanglements happen when whales run into gear that commercial fishermen use to catch Dungeness crab or other crustaceans. The line is a thick rope extending from a buoy on the ocean surface to a heavy trap or pot on the ocean floor. Whales run into the rope while chasing prey along the coastline, and it gets caught in their mouths.
The whales move where the food is, and they’re feeding, so they’ll have their mouths open, said Peggy Stap, executive director of Marine Life Studies, a conservation group in Moss Landing. She’s seen whales struggle to eat with line running through their mouths. In some cases, Stap said, the line tangles around their fins and impedes them from swimming.
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In one instance in September, Stap said, a fisherman set up 600 feet of line and spot prawn traps in a part of Monterey Bay where humpbacks were feeding. One whale got tangled and marooned, bound by the rope to 25 spot prawn traps and two mud anchors, Stap said. She led the rescue team that disentangled it.
It’s incredibly sad said Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the San Francisco-based Center for Biological Diversity, one of several conservation groups working to prevent whale entanglement.
Drowning, choking
If the gear is super heavy, they drown, Monsell said. It impedes their ability to feed if it gets in their mouths. If it wraps around their bodies and they continue to grow, they’ll slowly choke.
The surge in whale entanglements evidently began in 2014, when 30 whales were found entangled on the West Coast, and at least seven died from their injuries, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. The previous decade saw about eight entanglements per year along the West Coast.
As of April this year, 25 whales were ensnared off the California coastline, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. Among them was a killer whale that washed up near Fort Bragg with rope wounds around its tail.
Distressed by the trend, representatives of the Ocean Protection Council, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will hold a public meeting Thursday at the Elihu M. Harris State Building in Oakland. They’ll target the Dungeness crab fishery, which has caused the majority of whale entanglements on the West Coast, Monsell said.
Local crab fishermen will also attend the meeting, and many say they, too, are concerned about the problem.
The reality is, a fisherman may not even realize this is happening, said Dan Lawson, a fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Among the ideas on the table is a pilot program that would increase the number of crab pots on each fishing line, thereby decreasing the number of lines in the water. Another idea is to create a better logging system to keep track of how much gear is in the water. Many entanglements happen when whales run into broken line or derelict traps that fishermen have long forgotten, Monsell said.
Representatives of several conservation groups including Earthjustice, Oceana and the Center for Biological Diversity proposed those reforms, and others, in a letter to state officials in April.
San Francisco Chronicle