Entangled right whale off Nantucket appears ailing

Entangled right whale off Nantucket appears ailing




By Doug Fraser

Posted Feb 28, 2020


‘Dragon’ has fishing buoy lodged in corner of mouth.

NANTUCKET — An entangled 19-year-old female right whale, spotted earlier this week south of Nantucket, appears to be in poor health because of a fishing buoy lodged in one corner of her mouth.

Known as “Dragon,” this whale was spotted Monday by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aerial survey team 45 miles southeast of Nantucket and appeared emaciated with unhealthy looking skin, according to a statement from New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life.

Aquarium senior scientist Amy Knowlton said the buoy resembled an inshore lobster buoy. A rope wrapped around the front of the whale’s head did not appear heavy enough for Canadian snow crab or offshore lobster gear, although Knowlton cautioned it was hard to definitively identify the gear. The buoy is lodged in the baleen toward the front of the whale’s mouth and likely makes it difficult for her to close her jaws.

The roof of a right whale’s mouth is lined with blood vessels that scientists believe could be used to expel heat during warmer months when the mouth is open. But Knowlton feared that if Dragon is unable to close her mouth, she might be losing body heat to the cold winter water. She may be depleting her fat reserves to stay warm, as well as having trouble feeding, said Knowlton, who has worked on the aquarium’s Kraus Marine Mammal Conservation Program since 1983.

“She is extremely emaciated and gray, suggesting she may have been entangled and unable to close her mouth for months,” Knowlton said. Aerial photos revealed orange patches around Dragon’s head that Knowlton said were cyamids, lice that inhabit injured areas of the skin.

“It’s a tough situation for Dragon,” Knowlton said. “The gear is such that disentanglement may not be feasible.”

A disentanglement team from the Center for Coastal Studies has been on standby, she said, but the location, weather and the infrequent sightings have kept them from heading south.

The center said in an email that its Marine Animal Entanglement Response team will launch a rescue at the first opportunity.

″(Dragon) is in very poor physical condition, but it may not be too late to save her,” the center stated.

Dragon is the second entangled right whale seen in the area south of Nantucket, where around 60 of these endangered animals are now gathered. On Dec. 21, and again on Jan. 23 and Jan. 31, a 15-year-old male right whale was seen with three lines trailing from his mouth, collecting in a jumbled knot behind him that did not look as if it could be shed without human intervention.

The aquarium said it has documented more than 1,500 entanglements of whales in line and gear since 1980. More than 86% of right whales have been entangled at least once, more than 50% twice, and some up to eight times during their lifetime, the aquarium said.

North Atlantic right whales are the world’s most endangered great whale, with around 400 individuals but fewer than 100 females. Scientists have calculated that fewer than one right whale a year may be killed by humans if the species is to recover. The loss of a successful breeding female is even more costly to recovery given their low number relative to males.

Dragon is known to have given birth three times, with one of her calves, a female, now reaching breeding age, according to aquarium research scientist Philip Hamilton. Before this week, Dragon was last seen in Cape Cod Bay in April.

“It is both sad and discouraging to see Dragon, a whale we have followed from her birth through to maturity, entangled and in such poor health,” Hamilton said in a statement Friday. He manages the photo catalog used to identify right whales.

“The hope for this species rides on the broad backs of these calving females,” Hamilton said. “I fear we will lose this whale just as she enters what should be the prime of her reproductive life.”