Humpback whale entangled off OC coast, crews work to free it

An attempt to save a humpback whale entangled in rope was underway off the coast of Orange County on Thursday.

Michael Milstein from NOAA Fisheries told KNX News’ Karen Adams that whale watching boats spotted the humpback jumping in and out of the water with a rope wrapped around its tail fin. He said rescue teams tried to help it on Wednesday, but the whale resisted.

“The whale, as you can imagine for a wild animal that's in this situation, is pretty skittish and evasive, and they weren't able to access the areas of the whale's body and sections of the rope that they really would like to get to,” he said.

But the disentanglement teams came back the next day to try again.

It’s unclear how the whale became entangled in the rope, but Milstein said it could be a fishing net that was drifting in the water, or a trap from a crab fishery.

“If we can retrieve the rope and anything attached to it, like a buoy, then we'll have better information about how the animal may have become entangled in the first place,” he said.

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Milstein said it doesn’t appear the whale is actually injured, but its swimming ability is limited, which could lead to its death.

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