The rope embedded in the juvenile female North Atlantic right whale that washed ashore dead in Edgartown late last month was determined to have been from Maine.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced on Wednesday, Feb. 14, that analysis of the gear, including the purple markings on the rope, showed it was consistent with rope used in Maine waters for trap and pot buoy lines.
Conservationists were quick to condemn the Maine lobster industry. Jane Davenport, senior attorney at the conservation organization Defenders of Wildlife, accused the Maine lobster industry’s lobbyists and lawyers of “deceiving the public for years” by claiming gear from the state had never been tied to a right whale’s death.
“This right whale was no more than a year and a half old when she suffered the entanglement that ultimately killed her. She likely spent at least half of her short life in excruciating pain,” Davenport was quoted in a press release. “We cannot avert our eyes from the fact that entanglements are not only pushing this species to the brink of extinction, but brutalizing whales in the process.”
According to NOAA, leading causes of death among right whales are from fishing gear entanglements and vessel strikes. The full necropsy results are still pending, and the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement’s investigation of the case remains open.
The calf was identified as an unnamed 3-year-old with a catalog number of 5120, the only known calf of the whale Squilla (Catalog No. 3720). The rope had been entangled around the young whale since 2022, when it was first spotted in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. Multiple attempts were made to disentangle the whale in January and February 2023 off Cape Cod. She was seen again in June, when she was in worse condition, 60 miles northeast of Shippagan, New Brunswick.
The young whale washed ashore dead on Cow Bay in Edgartown. A necropsy was done on the whale in Aquinnah. The whale’s bones and baleen have been claimed by the Wampanoag tribe of Gay Head for their potential use, and the rest of the animal was buried onsite.
It’s time to put Maine lobstermen in jail for murder…
This is preventable. I know that many fishermen
are concerned about this, and do not take a death
like this lightly. I do not demonize them in any way.
As a fisherman pointed out here recently , this is very rare in
Mass.due to stricter regulations. Those regulations seem to
be working, and need to be implemented in all coastal waters. .
Perhaps the tragic short life of 5120 will spur some action.
Whales are dying to help you have a lobster dinner.
Don – thank you for recognizing our efforts!
Again, I was wrong I guess about area of entanglement , I was going off what New England Aquarium and NOAA were reporting.
Maine , just like Canada is a little behind by about 15 years from Massachusetts with entanglement prevention measures.
If you look closely to the rope , there should be a break away link every 60′ , this line does not have that. Maybe the breakaway rule wasn’t mandated at time of entanglement.
If it were installed, outcome would most likely be much different.
My hopes are , now that both Maine and Canada have similar regulations that we have here in Massachusetts, that entanglements will become even more rare.
I’m truly sorry that this happened.
This is an extinction crisis and we have to act immediately. But the burden shouldn’t fall on the fishing community–we should all share the cost of providing the fleet with safe gear. And it needs to happen now, nationally.