View this post on Instagram
A frantic search has been ongoing for a humpback whale entangled in a drum line off the east coast of Australia. The 20-ton, 25-foot-long mammal was first spotted off the coast of Newcastle on Saturday, according to The Guardian, having become entangled in rope and trailing a buoy. Since then, it has been traveling due south, with rescuers unable to catch up to it.
Not only is the whale’s entanglement an issue, but its direction of travel is also cause for concern, according to The Organization for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans (ORRCA), a NSW-based volunteer rescue group focusing on whales, dolphins, seals and dugongs. “This is very unusual to see it traveling south so early in the season,” ORRCA vice-president Jessica Fox told ABC News. “This is why we think this whale is in distress and it’s turning around and heading back to the Great Southern Ocean.”
The whale was spotted again off the northern beaches in Sydney on Sunday, but difficult conditions caused rescuers to lose track of it in the afternoon. On Monday, there were three unconfirmed sightings off Gerringong/Gerroa around 3:00 p.m., but once again conditions made it difficult for ORRCA rescuers to verify.
“Conditions have been terrible to verify that this is the whale we’re looking for, given that it’s sort of windy and choppy conditions, so we haven’t been able to get any drones up in the air to verify that this was our whale,” ORRCA representative Pip Jacobs told ABC.
ORRCA and the The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) are working alongside the Department of Primary Industry Fisheries and NSW Marine Rescue to continue to track the whale. “The NPWS has Large Whale Disentanglement teams on standby to respond if the animal is sighted, however sea conditions will be a consideration in whether or not it is safe to attempt a disentanglement if required,” a spokesperson told The Guardian.
Though it was estimated the whale would reach Ulladulla Tuesday morning, an ORRCA representative wrote on Facebook that there had been no confirmed sightings that day.
