Ruth, Joanne, Tom Jefferson, Sean and Anna were on a routine dolphin survey headed north when we overheard a call on the radio about a "disabled whale" south of Monterey, two miles off of Carmel Point. We couldn't really hear the entire message, so Sean called the Coast Guard and the Marine Mammal Center to get the scoop. The story was that a humpback whale apparently caught in some fishing gear was discovered by a charter boat, the Checkmate. Having both Sean and Tom on board, who are experienced researchers holding permits to approach marine mammals, Sean asked if we could be of any help. We were immediately told that our help would be appreciated, so we turned south and sped down to coordinates that had been provided by the Checkmate.

It took an hour to reach Carmel point and we were having trouble spotting the Checkmate. After almost an hour of seardching, we found the whale. Its tail was caught in lines from some fishing buoys. We later found that the buoys were still tethered to the bottom with a very heavy fishing trap. We carefully assessed the situation, taking photographs and Joanne kept careful notes about how often the whale was breathing.
When a supporting vessel arrived, the Silver Prince piloted by Danny Frank, we determined that the only way to get the whale free was for divers to get into the water and cut the lines from the tail stock by hand. Two snorkeles from the other boat, Jerrad Berg and Bob Talbot, got into the water and swam around the tail fluke (extremely dangerous!) trying to assess the situation and try to cut the lines. They had only been in the water for 5 minutes when our boat spotted some killer whales approaching at 100 meters!! The divers quickly got out of the water, and we did not see the orca get any closer. The divers decided to go back into the water because the humpback would not last long with transient killer whales around and were able to cut the whale free within minutes.

The whale hung at the surface for a few moments and then swam off. Success!! It was absolutely amazing to witness the event. Please listen to Tom's audio blog about the event, and watch the video interview with Ruth. The Santa Cruz Sentinel published an article about the event on September 5th. And Sean submitted his log of the rescue on the Santa Cruz Sentinel Forum pages. On September 7th, the Monterey Herald also wrote up our efforts!

Account of Whale Rescue