BOATING : Helping Those Who Help Whales
It’s whale-watching season, and Rick Ware would like Orange County boaters to keep their eyes open, particularly for whales that have become tangled in offshore fishing nets--a common occurrence between mid-December and March as the mammals migrate to and from Mexico.
“To help spot these offshore animals, we need the help of the Saturday and Sunday people sailing over to Catalina--anyone out there on the water,” said Ware, co-director of the Whale Rescue Unit, based in Orange County, and a marine science instructor at Orange Coast College.
Ware is quick to point out, however, that boaters themselves should not try to rescue a whale in trouble. That’s a dangerous job strictly for specialists such as Ware and co-director Tom Lewis, both marine biologists who have been involved in more than a dozen rescues since the organization was founded in 1985.
“Boaters should abide by federal regulations that require you to keep 100 yards away and should not attempt to free the animal,” Ware says. “Instead, just stay in the area and call us, or contact the Coast Guard or lifeguards.”
The Whale Rescue Unit operates a 24-hour hot line, (800) 243-3383, to handle such calls and is ready to put a rescue plan in motion at a moment’s notice, Ware says. The organization’s network is composed of several Southern California marine biologists, lifeguard agencies and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The unit has a coordinated response system designed to handle calls from San Diego to Santa Barbara. When it receives a report of an entangled whale, the unit sends a trained response team to assess the problem and to determine how the whale should be released.
Most rescues require team members to get into the water with the giant mammals. There, using specially designed knives, they cut the net away. According to Ware, a typical rescue will involve one or two boats and between two and five rescuers, all of them familiar with whale behavior, water safety and fishing gear.
With the exception of a few cut hands, Ware says, none of the rescuers have been injured so far. “It could be a very dangerous task,” Ware says, pointing out that gray whales typically weigh between 7 and 15 tons and measure 25 to 35 feet long, and that they are aggressive animals.
Lewis recalled his “scariest” rescue, a few years ago in Dana Point: a 30-foot whale towed his 52-foot rescue vessel backward for more than two hours. “During that time, we got in the water to try and cut the net away, and every time we got near it, it would thrash wildly,” says Lewis, who is a marine biologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
And Ware will never forget his first whale rescue attempt, in 1985: One member of the rescue team became entangled in the net with the whale. “When we were out there the first time, we did not have the slightest clue as to what to do,” Ware said. “The danger lies in working with a fully wild animal. We knew very little about interactions of open ocean marine mammals, about what happens when a man gets in the water with a whale in the ocean.”
Ware recalls riding the giant whale, holding on with one hand as he tried to cut the net away with the other. “When it dived, we would hold on and hold our breath. When it surfaced, we’d cut as much net as possible. A couple of times when it surfaced, we were right behind the blowhole, and there was this foul smelling air blowing right in our face.”
That first rescue attempt was only partly successful, Ware said. “The animal was pulling a net that could have been a quarter-mile long. If you can, imagine a whale wrapped in a volleyball net six times, with the line tight around its body. We cut the net all off around the head and midsection, and a lot was still around the tail where it was in tight knots.”
In an effort to cut the net from the tail, Ware tried working from a small inflatable boat. “The whale proceeded to flip the boat up out of the water and put me into orbit,” he said.
After five hours, darkness was approaching and the rescuers had to give up. “But it gave us the motivation to set up a meeting with the appropriate agencies and to approach this from a scientific standpoint--and not just an emotional one,” Ware said.
The result was that he and Lewis organized the Whale Rescue Unit and began to develop methods for releasing entangled animals. Among the methods:
-- Setting up a hot-line number.
-- Maintaining a network of boats that can respond to calls.
-- Designing special V-shaped knives that allow rescuers to cut away nets without injuring the animals.
-- Enlisting other marine biologists to aid in such rescues.
“Our goal is to develop methods so that you do not have to go into the water with the animal, methods by which the animal is immobilized by placing a large long line and some buoys that keep it from moving and that keep the animal at the surface.”
Currently, however, most rescues still require that someone get into the water with the whale. Rescuers cannot use scuba gear because of the danger of entanglement, Ware says, but they do wear wet suits and use snorkeling equipment. Most rescue operations involve two or three inflatable boats and a large boat that serves as the mother ship.
“We were averaging about 10 to 15 rescues a season, but for the past couple of years, there have been fewer entanglements,” Lewis says.
Lewis points out, though, that this does not necessarily mean that fewer whales are becoming entangled. It may mean only that fewer entangled whales are being spotted. That might be, according to Lewis, because over the past two or three years gray whales’ migration pattern has change. Fewer are taking the coastal route and more are going farther out to sea where they are hard to spot, he says.
“That’s why we need more boaters to help us look for entangled animals,” Ware adds. “The whales are moving farther offshore, and the only way you can spot them is from boats. We need eyes on the water.”
A whale that acts erratically or that moves slowly trailing a buoy may be tangled in a fishing net or crab pot line, Ware says.
For more information about the Whale Rescue Unit, call (213) 592-2156; or write to the Whale Rescue Unit at P.O. Box 2714, Huntington Beach, 92647.
Whale-Watching Tips: Each year thousands of boaters venture out to sea in hopes of catching a glimpse of the California gray whales as they make their migrations. Jim Lecky, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, offers boaters this advice:
Approach whales slowly from behind.
Maintain a slow and constant speed.
Stay at least 100 yards from the whale.
Never go faster than the whale is.
Avoid changing throttle speed.
Remember that, under the Marine Mammal Protection Law, harassing whales is illegal.
Women’s Sailing Convention: The Southern California Yachting Assn. will have its second Women’s Sailing Convention Feb. 2 at the Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club in San Pedro.
Gail Hine of Tustin is the organizer of the event, which attracted about 200 sailors last year. Activities will include a two- to three-hour instruction day sailing in Los Angeles Harbor on boats provided by members of several Southern California yacht clubs. Cost is $35, which includes the day sail, dinner and commemorative shirt. For information, call Hine at (714) 730-1797, or call Cecily Seabourn (213) 809-1187.
Nautical Exhibit: Weather in Newport Beach will be the subject of an exhibit opening Feb. 8 with a presentation by TV weatherman George Fischbeck at 6:30 p.m. at the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum.
The exhibit will include photographs and material relating to big local storms. The show is sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, which is celebrating its centennial year. The Flood Awareness Program division of the Orange County Flood Control District also is contributing material.
Further information is available from the museum, (714) 673-3377. The museum is at 1714 Balboa Blvd. Hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays.
