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Officials have been desperately searching for a blue whale caught in an estimated 400 feet of commercial fishing line. Early on Friday afternoon, a whale watching boat spotted the blue whale pulling “a long line attached to a red buoy,” according to a statement by the NOAA.
The whale was first sighted near Catalina Island by Dan Salas, a captain with Harbor Breeze Cruises. “This whale was staying right up on the surface and swimming real gentle, so we feel that the whale knows that it has a line on it,” Salas said. “Hopefully the whale understood that help is on the way,” he told ABC.
After the whale was spotted off the coast of Palos Verdes, California, the Coast Guard and the NOAA both responded, but weren’t able to find the whale.
“If the line runs across its mouth, it can keep the animal from from eating or cut deep into the mouth,” explained Jim Milbury, NOAA Public Affairs Officer. “If entangled on the fluke or dorsal or pectoral fins, it could eventually cause infection, cut or even sever the appendage. We still don’t have a clear picture of how or where it is entangled.”
