Complicated, dangerous rescue frees young humpback on B.C.’s central coast
BELLA BELLA, B.C. — A young humpback whale is gouged and covered with bloody abrasions, but is expected to survive being snared in parts of unused marine equipment on British Columbia’s central coast.
Department of Fisheries marine mammal co-ordinator Paul Cottrell estimated the whale had only hours to live by the time he and a team of rescuers cut it free of ropes that barely allowed the animal to reach the surface of a remote bay two hours outside Bella Bella.
The roughly three-year-old, 10 or 11-metre humpback had been entangled for about six hours on Monday by the time experts arrived to carry out the dangerous rescue, Cottrell said.
He said the whale thrashed and fought throughout a six-hour procedure as the team tried to decide which ropes to cut so the snare of equipment would fall away, freeing the exhausted animal.