How to Disentangle a Whale, Russian Style
Entanglement in fishing nets and fishing lines is a major cause of death for marine mammals around the world. The US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), scientists, nonprofit organizations and volunteers have been experimenting with techniques to remove nets and lines from whales and other marine mammals. There is now a formal stranding network of institutions around the coast that respond when marine mammals are reported stranded or entangled in fishing gear.
The International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) of Earth Island Institute has been hosting Russian conservationists in the US for several years. One group, based in Russia’s Sakhalin Island, has been especially interested in addressing stranded and entangled marine mammals in Far East Russia.
How does one learn to free a whale from entanglement if that whale is swimming hard and not interested in slowing down? NMFS has established a protocol for such occasions and even developed a large life-sized wooden whale tail, which is dragged at typical whale swimming speed behind a boat and presents the challenge of removing nets and ropes entangled in it. Participants in a following boat use long cutters at the end of poles to cut off the netting and ropes while in motion.
IMMP has arranged for our Russian friends visiting the US to join NMFS experts in learning how disentangling a whale is conducted using the wooden “tail” dragged by a boat.
Recently, our eager friends on Sakhalin have fashioned their own fake whale’s-tail, and they braved the bitter late summer weather there to give their new disentanglement team some practice.
We expect to host another exchange in December, when NMFS has invited the Russians to further learn and practice disentanglement techniques in Hawaii.
Russian conservationists have been very active in seeking out nets and fishing gear drifting on the ocean that pose a hazard to marine mammals and other marine life, pulling the nets from the water and disposing of them on land. This is in addition to their work educating local Russians, especially children, about the marine life and the importance of the ocean to our world.
There are a number of species of marine mammals around Sakhalin Island that are vulnerable to entanglement, including the very rare Korean population of gray whales, a subspecies of the gray whale that migrates along the Pacific Coast of North America. Stellar sea lions are also prone to getting entangled in ropes and other fishing gear – our Russian friends have been working with the California Marine Mammal Center, based out at the Marin Headlands, on techniques to disentangle seals and sea lions.
Photos courtesy of Ocean Friends.
