Marine animal rescuers on Vancouver Island have reported a surge in whale entanglements this summer. Paul Cottrell, the marine mammal coordinator at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, stated that his team has responded to an average of one to two entanglements per week over the past two months, consistent with last year’s figures. Alongside these incidents, they have also conducted several necropsies.
The latest entanglement involved a humpback whale calf and its mother, spotted near the south coast of Vancouver Island ensnared in over 100 meters of rope. The calf had been dragging the rope since July 5, when it went missing from B.C.’s central coast. The team, working with U.S. counterparts, spent seven hours freeing the calf from the entanglement.
Recently, there were two consecutive days of entanglement calls. The team successfully disentangled a whale named Wiggins for the second time in a year near French Creek on Vancouver Island’s eastern coast. Subsequently, they responded to another entanglement call in the Alberni Inlet on the central Island, highlighting the increasing frequency of such incidents with no signs of slowing entanglement rates.
Jackie Hildering, a researcher with the Marine Education and Research Society (MERS), emphasized the “second chance” humpback whales have received due to heightened conservation efforts after being nearly wiped out by hunting. However, she expressed concerns over the escalating entanglement cases, noting that 50% of the whales she has observed show signs of previous entanglements, hinting at potentially underestimated numbers.
Hildering stressed the importance of prevention and education over reactive disentanglement efforts, advocating for informed actions to mitigate humpback entanglements and fatalities. She recommended taking a whale-safe boating course developed by MERS, endorsed by the federal government, to minimize human impacts on whale populations.
