December 10, 2018 — More than two-thirds (70%) of the 76 whales that were killed after being entangled in US waters in 2017 were caught up in fishing gear, including traps and buoy lines and nets, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says in its “National Large Whale Entanglement Report” released Thursday.
Most of the rest – 24% — were linked to lines that could not be attributed to a fishery activity, the US regulatory agency noted.
The data could get mentioned frequently as fishing-related regulatory agencies in the US and Canada take an increasingly harder look at how the use of lobster and snow crab traps might be contributing to whale deaths.
NOAA’s report notes that humpback whales accounted for 49 of the 76 whales that were snarled last year. That’s just above the 10-year average of 69.5 whales entangled per year. Gray and minke whales (seven each) were the next largest groups to be entangled.
Just three of the endangered North Atlantic right whales, the source of much of the controversy in the US and Canada, were part of the tally.
The majority of the whales, 33, were discovered on the northeastern US coast, from Maine to Virginia, though it’s not clear that’s where they got entangled in gear.
“Large whales are powerful and mobile. They can town gear with them for long, long distances, so where we observe them is not usually the place they became entangled,” Sarah Wilkin, national stranding and emergency response coordinator at NOAA Fisheries, is quoted by the Asbury Park (New Jersey) Press as saying.