SAVANNAH, Ga. - Right whales are something like pit bulls. They're obstinate and strong and, because the whales weight 40 tons or more, they're not a beast you want to approach unprepared.
So with the winter calving season pulling the whales to southern waters during the next few months, biologists from Georgia and Florida last week practiced what they would do if they spotted a whale entangled in fishing gear.
Their practice paid off almost immediately. On Dec. 3, during a routine aerial survey, wildlife biologist Clay George of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources spotted an entangled right whale about 20 miles off St. Simons. The whale was wrapped in fishing gear and trailed about 400 feet of line and a large buoy behind it.
By mid-afternoon, Mr. George, along with Adam Mackinnon and Mark Dodd of the DNR, had attached a tracking device to the whale.
Experts from National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, Georgia DNR, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies and the Wildlife Trust have assembled to free the whale from the fishing line, but their efforts are hampered by severe weather and ocean conditions.
Fishing gear is second only to ship strikes as the biggest known killer of endangered North Atlantic right whales, of which only 300 to 350 remain.
"Up to 70 percent of right whales bear some scars from entanglement," Mr. George said.
Tagging is a critical first step in disentangling a whale, a process that sometimes takes days or even weeks under ideal conditions.
Last week's on-the-water training in the Brunswick River used a boat as a stand-in for the whale. Teams from Florida and Georgia, including the three biologists who responded Saturday, participated.
Two days later, they knew exactly what to do.
"We were able to shorten the trailing line as well as attach a satellite buoy so that we would be able to relocate the whale for further disentanglement efforts," Mr. George said.
Practice paid off last year, too, when Mr. Mackinnon and Mr. Dodd attached a monitor to an entangled 32-foot juvenile right whale nicknamed Yellow Fin.
At first the whale was trailing so much gear that it was relatively easy to attach a telemetry buoy, according to Mr. Mackinnon.
"We motored up to it and grabbed the line," he said. But when they then had to shorten the line and reattach the device, Yellow Fin got evasive. Still, they were able to tag the whale.
Ten days later, on New Year's Eve, the disentanglement team caught up to Yellow Fin off the coast of Charleston and freed it from the gear.
About right whales
Size: Adults are 45 to 55 feet long and weigh 40 to 50 tonsdiet: Plankton; primarily copepods in the northern hemisphere and krill in the southern hemisphere.
Location: Northern right whales are found in the North Atlantic, and southern right whales are found only in the southern hemisphere. Pregnant females and juveniles from the north often move to coastal Georgia and Florida after the summer for calving.
Life cycle: Calves are born once every three or four years; mothers commonly are 7 years to 10 years old. The calves weigh about 3,000 pounds and are 10 to 15 feet long when they are born after a 12- to 14-month gestation. They stay with their mothers for as long as a year. Right whales can live for a long time; the same one was photographed in 1935 and 1995.
How they got their name: Early whalers thought this species was the "right" one to kill because the whales were slow swimmers, lived near the shore, floated when dead and produced lots of oil when their fat layer was melted down.
Source: Whale Center of New England; www.whalecenter.org
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