Heart-Stopping Whale Rescue in Hawaii: Rescuers Free Giants from Deadly Traps

Trained rescuers from the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary performed life-saving detangling operations for the whales.

Local rescuers assisted two humpback whales in escaping life-threatening entanglements, and they swam free.

In separate occurrences on January 8 and 9, both off the coast of Maui, Hawaii, trained local rescuers received reports of the entanglement and conducted rescue operations to extricate the struggling whales, according to Hawaii News Now, Kauai Now, and The Maui News.

On Jan. 8, after a local tour boat operator reported a stuck whale, staff at the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary led a team of rescuers to help detangle the whale. The sanctuary is a nationally recognized and protected whale habitat that also aids in scientific and conservation efforts.


When authorities arrived to the site, The Maui News said, they discovered approximately 200 feet of gauge line circling the whale's mouth and tail - a scenario so bad that the whale is unlikely to have been able to free itself, according to sanctuary staff.
 

The team sent a small, inflatable boat from its larger vessel to cut the whale free of the gauge line.

A day after liberating the first whale, the sanctuary received a call about a similar situation: people on the beach flying drones observed another entangled whale struggling in the water.

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Once again, skilled rescuers from the refuge went into action, this time locating an adult humpback whale wrapped in an even stronger gauge rope. According to The Maui News, the line wrapped around the animal's body and constricted its right pectoral flipper.

The team removed the wrappings around the whale's body and cut a single line pinning the whale's right flipper, but they were unable to remove all of the potentially life-threatening gear before the animal swam away.

According to Kauai Now, during the rescue attempts, scientists discovered that the tangled gear surrounding the whales came from a humpback whale feeding site off the coast of Alaska. More work is being done to discover the precise source of the gauge line in order to reduce future entanglement problems.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, gear entanglement is a severe concern to great whales, often interfering with their ability to swim, feed, and breathe. According to the organization, whales can become entangled for days, weeks, or even years before eventually freeing themselves.

Nonetheless, entanglements are "not necessarily life-threatening at the onset," according to the NOAA, and expert crews such as those in Hawaii can sometimes intervene and remove the equipment.