May Starve Within Two Weeks : 30-Ton Gray Whale Entangled in Fishing Net

A 30-ton California gray whale, entangled in a fishing net off San Diego, swam Friday into Mexican waters, where it will probably live for several weeks before eventually starving to death, marine wildlife authorities said.

Divers from Sea World were unable Thursday to get close enough to the whale to cut loose any part of a drift gill net, which was wrapped two or three times around the animal, said Sea World spokeswoman Jackie Hill. The net is normally used to catch swordfish and sharks.

Hill said that although the whale’s flukes are free, enabling it to swim and dive, it is prevented from feeding because its head is caught in the net. The species is a baleen whale, which feeds by siphoning food through filters in its mouth.

“It (the whale caught in the net) can’t siphon anything through,” Hill said Friday. “I’ve likened it to putting a sock over it.”

Can’t Survive for Long

Doyle Hanan, marine biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game, said that California gray whales can survive without food for “several weeks or months.”

Jim Lecky, wildlife biologist for the Southwest Fisheries Center in La Jolla, said Southwest Fisheries was still trying, as of Friday, to notify Mexican authorities about the whale’s predicament.

Corona del Mar, a private fishing vessel, reported at 11 a.m. Thursday that there was a whale trapped in a floating gill net four to five miles south of Point Loma, along the San Diego coast, Coast Guard Lt. Curtis Stock said.

Authorities were notified and Sea World divers, equipped with masks and knives, worked unsuccessfully for 45 minutes to free the whale, Hill said.

Hill said divers managed to get only within a few feet of the whale, which would dive for up to seven minutes at a time before resurfacing.

The California gray whale is on the endangered species list, Hanan said, but whether the species is threatened “is very debatable. The population itself is at a historical high level.”

Net Drop Illegal Soon

Dropping drifting gill nets will become illegal within 75 miles of coastline as of Dec. 15, when whale migration typically begins, said Lecky of Southwest Fisheries.

This is the first gray whale in three years to get caught in a drifting gill net. The animals usually get caught in anchored gill nets, used to catch halibut, Lecky said.

“It’s early in the year for this kind of thing to happen,” he said.

Drift gill nets are usually a mile long and are made of tightly braided nylon, one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch thick, Stock said. He said drift nets used to be legal only at night, but are now allowed in daytime as well.

“It’s legal to place drift gill nets there,” Stock said. “For this whale, there just happened to be bad luck involved.”

Lecky said that migrating California grays usually get caught in set gill nets, which are used to catch halibut along shorelines. He said there are about 10 reports a year of whales getting caught in the set gill nets.

In September, he said a new law closed areas to set gill nets in point areas along the coast where whales tend to congregate, such as Point Loma and Dana Point. The law also required a break-away panel in the net to allow whales to escape.

The California gray whale migrates from Alaska to Mexico and back from December through May.