PROVINCETOWN, Mass.—A marine mammal rescue team has successfully freed an endangered North Atlantic right whale from the fishing line entangled around its head and mouth.
The director of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies entanglement response team says rescuers used a 30-foot pole and hook-shaped knife on Wednesday to cut the fishing line that had been around the young male whale for about a month.
The same whale was disentangled in 2009 about a mile away from Wednesday's location off the coast of Cape Cod.
The center says 320 of the world's roughly 475 remaining right whales were documented in Cape Cod Bay in 2011.
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