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CNN Live At Daybreak
Scientist Discusses Attempt to Free Whale Entangled in Fishing Line
Aired June 26, 2001 - 08:48 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: A team of marine scientists are attempting a daring rescue operation at sea. Their patient is a 50- foot-long, 50-ton whale tangled up in a fishing line that's cutting into its jaw and causing a life-threatening infection.
On the telephone with us right now is Teri Frady of the National Marine Fisheries Services, in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Good morning, Teri.
TERI FRADY, NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES: Good morning.
LIN: Yesterday, fog was a big problem in trying to get out to this whale. How's it looking today?
FRADY: It looks much better today. It's beautiful here in Provincetown. It looks like flat conditions, much better visibility off shore. It wasn't bad in Provincetown yesterday, but once they got offshore, they did encounter quite a bit of fog and just weren't able to sight the whale at all.
LIN: We're going to keep our fingers crossed for you.
FRADY: Thank you.
LIN: I've got to ask you: How do you perform an operation on a 50-ton patient?
FRADY: I have to say that I think the medical metaphor has been stretched a bit here, but it is, without question, a very dangerous procedure, no matter what the kind of entanglement it is. In this case, it's complicated but what we believe to be deep wound that has a piece of line embedded in it, so that without removing that, or at least cutting it so it can remove itself through the whale's natural activity, it's not thought that this whale has much of a chance. And that means we may have to employ new ways of restraining the whale in order to get close enough to do that.
LIN: How do you restrain a whale?
FRADY: It's an interesting process. I think, with most entanglements, they try not to have to restrain the whale. You try to go with the whale and remove as much of the line as they can without having to restrain it. If you have to restrain it, one of the first things that happens is you would simply attach floats to the existing line to help slow it down. If that doesn't work, and if that's not enough, typically what's happened in the past is we've stopped. Because this injury is so grave, and because this is such an endangered while, we're decided to perhaps try a couple of other things that are developing technologies: a tail harness, that would be used essentially not so much to pull the whale backwards...
LIN: Just keep it steady?
FRADY: Exactly. There's a tail harness that has been attached to a boat that keeps a pressure on it, to keep the tail from slipping, essentially, and perhaps hurting the people that are trying to help.
LIN: Terry, I imagine that here you've got a have 50-ton animal, in pain, out at sea. I just wouldn't expect it to cooperate very much with the scientists, and I'm trying to imagine what this picture's going to be like out there in the water.
FRADY: We'll find out, I guess, but I can tell you that even in a typical disentanglement, that's one of the reasons why you go with the whale. Another thing we'll probably try is...
LIN: When you say "go with the whale," swimming alongside or sitting on deck?
FRADY: They actually use some inflatable rafts. These are deployed from a larger vessel, and you don't approach the whale in any way in a big craft, because you don't want to scare it. And so the raft seems to be something that they do tolerate, particularly right whales. But everybody is quite aware that that's a very powerful whale, pound for pound, probably the most powerful whale we get here. They're very unpredictable. But they do seem to tolerate vessels in and around them -- small ones like that.
But when you start trying to remove line, you do have to be very careful. That's one reason why in addition to the research vessel Shearwater, we also have the Coast Guard with us today. It's going to be an increased safety hazard for humans.
LIN: Is time running out for this whale? How much time does it have before it might die from this infection?
FRADY: There are a couple of things that are going on. One time factor is the one you mentioned; the wound itself appears to be quite grievous. We don't know the extent of the infection, so the longer the line stays in, or the longer the wound stays like it is, the more likely it is that we have a lethal injury.
In addition to that, this is getting to be the time of year when these whales will start to move north, and he would get out of our range of rescue pretty quickly if he decides to go to his more northerly area.
LIN: Terry Frady, we wish you luck. That is a big job ahead.
FRADY: We appreciate it.
LIN: Hopefully, we'll get a chance to talk to you or someone from your organization tomorrow. Thanks so much.
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