Researchers Seek Whale Tangled in Gill Net : Wildlife: The public is asked to help find the injured humpback spotted July 4 off Santa Cruz Island.

Peter Howorth was returning from a day spent observing and photographing whales off the Ventura County coast when he spotted a humpback that looked odd.

When he and other researchers drew close enough, they realized the whale was laboring to swim under a mantle of gill net encrusted with barnacles. The net was so big it trailed 20 feet behind the 35-foot-long mammal, Howorth said.

It was too late in the day to attempt a rescue, and in the 2 1/2 weeks since the July 4 sighting, searchers have been unable to find the humpback.

Now, they are enlisting the public’s help.

“There are a lot of eyes and ears out there,” said Howorth, executive director of the Santa Barbara-based Marine Mammal Center, a nonprofit group that rescues sick and injured sea life in the Santa Barbara Channel.

“If somebody sees it, maybe they will report it and we can get out there and rescue it.”

Howorth spotted the whale off Santa Cruz Island, but he believes it has probably made its way to the Central Coast by now.

It was the second time in recent months that his group has spotted a whale trapped in a gill net, Howorth said. Last winter, a young sperm whale, heavily wrapped in a gill net, washed ashore dead at San Miguel Island, he said. Humpback and sperm whales are both listed on the federal endangered species list.

Although gill nets regularly ensnare sea lions, rays and other animals, whale injuries are fairly unusual, officials said.

In 1985, 15 whales were killed or injured by gill nets placed in waters off California, said Jim Lecky, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries. But since then, new regulations have forced fisherman to use nets with breakaway panels that whales can tear through.

Gill netters also avoid areas where whales are likely to be migrating, reducing the number of tangled whales spotted each year to fewer than three, Lecky said.

“Whales are big and powerful and they tend to blow right through the newer nets,” said Roland Takayama, a warden in the state Department of Fish and Game’s Santa Barbara office.

Whale injuries involving gill nets may become even more rare after Jan. 1. That is when a state law barring the use of gill nets within three miles of the California shore takes effect. The measure was approved by California voters in 1990.

Gill nets are stretched in the water like a volleyball net that measures several thousand feet long. Opponents call them “walls of death” because they sweep through the waters and catch a wide variety of species.

The fishing industry has maintained that the nets are safe and economical when used properly.

In the five years he has been fishing commercially, he has never seen a whale hurt or trapped by a gill net, said Chuck Janisse, a member of the Ventura County Commercial Fisherman’s Assn.

“The number of entanglements is so small that it isn’t deemed to be a problem,” Janisse said.

With improvements in the netting, such as the breakaway panels, whales manage to work their way out, he said. That’s probably what happened with the humpback sighted by Howorth’s group, Janisse said.

“Eventually, it will rid itself of the net,” he said.

Howorth, who has worked as a government consultant on whale behavior, isn’t so sure.

He believes the humpback he saw has been tangled for weeks and maybe months, judging by the barnacles that had attached to the net.

The net had rolled into a tight bundle between the mammal’s blowhole and its dorsal fin when researchers spotted it, he said. An old scar indicated it had once been wrapped around the animal’s neck, he said.

One pectoral fin was also partly wrapped, restricting the whale ability to propel itself forward, Howorth said. Some of its wounds from the net were severe, he said.

“It’s like carrying around a ball and chain,” he said. “Eventually, it will die of exhaustion or it will die from infection. It’s a very slow, painful death.”