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American Morning

Entangled Whale: Workers Prepare for Another Rescue Attempt

Aired July 25, 2001 - 11:21   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.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: You may recall the case of the entangled whale off the coast of Massachusetts. This is a story we've been following for quite a while now because heavy fishing line is stuck in the whale's jaw and now causing a serious infection. Rescue workers may be getting ready for another attempt to disentangle the whale.

Now, with us now live on the telephone is Teri Frady of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Ms. Frady, thanks for bringing us up to date.

TERI FRADY, NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES: Good morning.

FRAZIER: Have we spotted this whale? I know it sounded a while ago and got away from rescuers.

FRADY: We actually have not been able to do a visual confirmation with this whale since we last saw it on the 14th. On the 16th, a couple of days later, he made his northerly run, which is quite expected at this time of year for right whales, into his eating ground much further north from us in Canadian waters.

There was an aircraft that was, went up yesterday. They were able to locate the beacon from the satellite telemetry buoy that he's towing, but there's a lot of fog out in that area and they weren't able to do a visual.

FRAZIER: Well, when you say fog, that sounds like possibly rescuers could themselves be put at risk in trying to help this whale.

FRADY: That's correct. In fact, much of what we've been doing since the 14th is working very closely with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. And, actually, no, it's National Weather Service, the prediction center, with the marine desk that deals with the North Atlantic and trying to predict the very unpredictable weather conditions that occur on this Scotia shelf.

The whale is presently a little over 100 miles south-southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, roughly between Nova Scotia and Sable Island, and that's some of the most treacherous weather that we have in the North after the close.

FRAZIER: Yes, that's the -- that's perfect storm kind of country, right? FRADY: Yes, sort of, and I think this time of year it's just very difficult to predict. What we're seeing is some, most of the models are predicting very high winds for us, some rough seas and poor visibility, a fog bank that's just basically been sitting there for the last few days. We're hopeful that we will have a window some time toward the end of the weekend, the first part of the week, but that window is likely to be quite narrow, although the conditions are looking up for it.

FRAZIER: Before I ask you what you're going to try to do, let's talk about the fact that there are a lots of whales in these waters and lots of fishing nets. How did these two come together, do you suppose?

FRADY: Well, in this particular case we don't actually know that this is line from fishing gear. It is certainly typical of the kind of line you would find on fishing gear, but up to now we've not seen or recovered any sort of gear on this piece of line. It's a poly, a manmade material, a braided rope about three quarters of an inch in diameter. We, but that said, we certainly know that anchored fishing gear and ships are particularly well known human threats to right whales.

FRAZIER: And what are you going to try to do if you can catch up with the whale, then? I know it has been difficult. It's been resisting efforts of humans.

FRADY: Well, actually, we've had much better success in the last couple of attempts than we had when we started out. The initial assessment of this entanglement made it quite clear that simply the, you know, working the line out of the wound and the head was not going to be possible with the small craft that we use and the typical methods. So we then moved into the next phase, which was: Was there a way for us to at least slow this whale down and restrain him such that it would be safe for the team to get very near to his head in order to try to cut this line that's quite deeply entrenched into the wound at this point?

So to do that we were, we had in development a couple of new methods for medicating these whales in the field and also for restraining them using a tail harness. We were able to deploy these things successfully. However, in the first case...

FRAZIER: All right, Ms. Frady, we're going to have to let that be the last word because we're running out of time.

FRADY: OK.

FRAZIER: But we're grateful for that update. Teri Frady from the National Marine Fisheries Service, thank you.

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