Marine mammal rescuers operating on Vancouver Island have reported a high volume of whale entanglements this summer. Paul Cottrell, the marine mammal coordinator at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, stated that his team has been dealing with an average of one to two entanglements per week over the past two months, consistent with the numbers seen last year. In addition to these incidents, they have also conducted several necropsies.

In the most recent case, which occurred last week, the team responded to a humpback whale calf and its mother near the south coast of Vancouver Island. The calf was entangled in over 100 meters of rope, which it had been dragging since July 5 when it went missing from the central coast of British Columbia. The team, in collaboration with U.S. counterparts, spent seven hours freeing the calf from the entanglement.

Cottrell mentioned that they had received two other entanglement calls in the preceding days. They had to disentangle a whale named Wiggins for the second time in a year near French Creek on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island before heading to the central Island and the Alberni Inlet for another rescue operation. He expressed concern about the increasing frequency of these incidents and the lack of a decrease in entanglement rates.

According to Jackie Hildering, a researcher and educator at the Marine Education and Research Society (MERS), conservation efforts have allowed humpback whales to make a comeback after being hunted to near extinction. However, Hildering warned that this opportunity is being jeopardized by the ongoing entanglement issue. She highlighted that 50% of the whales she has observed through research show signs of previous entanglements, indicating a more significant problem than commonly recognized.

Hildering emphasized that while disentanglements receive attention, they are not a long-term solution. She stressed the importance of prevention and education in addressing entanglement issues, advocating for informed boating practices to mitigate the risks to humpback whales.