Right whale researchers attempt to disentangle ‘Kleenex’
PROVINCETOWN — A prolific North Atlantic right whale mother named Kleenex may eventually be freed from fishing line wrapped around her jaw for the past several years after a rescue effort Thursday on Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
“This is exactly the individual we are desperate to help,” said Scott Landry, who leads the center’s efforts to free marine animals from fishing gear.
The adult female, well-known to researchers, had been carrying rope wrapped around her upper jaw for at least three years, according to documented sightings. Because there was no trailing line on the rope, the usual technique of slowing the whale and keeping it at the surface by attaching buoys to the entanglement couldn’t be used, Landry said. Instead, the rescuers used a cutting arrow fired from the deck of the rescue boat to damage the rope on the animal, he said. The weakened rope should deteriorate and be shed by the whale over time, Landry said.
The entanglement of female right whales in fishing gear has been linked to energy depletion and inability of the females to sustain a pregnancy and a year of nursing a calf.
The critically endangered right whales need robust calving to help stop a decline in population that has has been detected since 2010, according to researchers.
The physical condition of Kleenex at the time of the disentanglement, though, was poor, according to a statement from the center.
“Her condition is compromised and she’s quite thin,” said Heather Pettis, an associate scientist with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium. “We are hopeful that the lines (on her) degrade and part soon and that she is able to recover.”
Kleenex had first been spotted by researchers in 1977 in the Bay of Fundy but had not been seen by researchers since 2014. To date, she has had eight calves, the last of which was born in 2009, according to the North Atlantic right whale databases maintained by the aquarium. Of Kleenex’s eight calves, six are presumed to be alive. In turn, Kleenex is a grandmother to 12 calves including one, Couplet, who was found dead last year in George’s Bank, along with a female who was disentangled in 2016 by the Center for Coastal Studies and a male who was disentangled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence last year. Kleenex has six great-grandchildren as well.
An airplane survey team from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, part of the National Marine Fisheries Service, first spotted Kleenex Tuesday in Stellwagen Bank, and then directed the Center for Coastal Studies rescue boat to where the whale was feeding.
That same day, the Center for Coastal Studies made an unsuccessful first attempt to free her of the rope, said airplane surveyor Christin Khan.
“We were circling on several right whales feeding (among) sei whales when scientist Peter Duley recognized the right whale as Kleenex,” Khan said.
The surveyors then focused on getting good photographs of her and her entanglement and reported the sighting to a hotline, which prompted the Center for Coastal Studies’ boat response.
After the airplane surveyors saw Kleenex again on Thursday, the disentanglement team approached again by boat and made cuts in the rope.
Researchers are hoping to see Kleenex again in the next few days to determine if she has managed to loosen or shed the line, according to Center for Coastal Studies.
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