A humpback whale entangled in fishing line was freed by National Park Service and NOAA staff/Sean Neilson via NPS

Editor's note: The following article was prepared by the staff at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve with photography and videos from Sean Neilson, an FAA-licensed drone pilot.

A humpback whale essentially "hog-tied" by 450 feet of heavy line attached to a 300-pound crab pot just outside Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska was freed during a day-long effort by National Park Service and NOAA’s Alaska Large Whale Entanglement Response crews.

The whale, a juvenile thought to be several years old, apparently snagged the gear on October 7 or 8 near Pleasant Island in Icy Strait to the southeast of Gustavus, where park headquarters is located. On Otober 10 area residents Sesylia Hazen and Kamille Williams phoned the Glacier Bay National Park’s Visitor Information Station to report a whale near the Gustavus dock that was trailing two buoys, making unusual sounds and having trouble moving freely. According to a report of the incident, National Park Service whale biologists Janet Neilson and Chris Gabriele were brought into the loop and immediately began consulting with their colleagues in the NOAA Alaska Large Whale Entanglement Response network.

Park staff went quickly to the dock with spotting scopes and cameras to confirm what kind of whale it was and to gather more details on the entanglement. By early afternoon, two trained disentanglement responders (park Ranger Bethany Robichaud and wildlife biologist Tania Lewis) were on their way to the scene just outside the park in the NPS patrol vessel Talus, along with Ranger Alison Richardson, to better document the whale’s condition. Since 2005, the Large Whale Entanglement Response network has offered whale disentanglement training in several Alaska communities. The network currently contains approximately 150 active members, including several Park Service staff at Glacier Bay.

The Talus crew observed a humpback whale swimming in a tight clockwise circle that appeared to be intermittently anchored to the seafloor by what was later learned to be a 300-pound crab pot with 450 feet of heavy duty line, the report said.

The owner of the gear supplied those details when the Park Service contacted them. The pot, which they had set near Pleasant Island, had gone missing sometime between Saturday morning October 7 and Sunday morning October 8, meaning the whale had already been entangled for at least three days when it was reported. All of this information was evaluated by the Response Network team and led to the decision that a disentanglement effort was warranted. A rescue effort was authorized by NOAA’s Alaska Large Whale Entanglement Response Coordinator, Sadie Wright.  Gale force winds were forecast for later in the week and daylight hours were short, however there was one more fair weather window the following day to attempt to disentangle the whale. But assembling the team was another challenge.

By coincidence, whale disentanglement expert Dr. Fred Sharpe, from the Alaska Whale Foundation, had just arrived in Juneau and was available to fly to Gustavus the next day. Sharpe agreed to lead a team that included Janet, Gabriele, Lewis, and Robichaudm, along with Captain Justin Smith on the NPS research vessel Capelin. FAA licensed drone pilot Sean Neilson volunteered to fly to take aerial imagery to help clarify how the whale was tangled. The video and still images he collected proved to be essential to understanding how the whale was entangled and making a strategy to cut it free.

The next morning, when Alaska Seaplanes pilot Brandon Warren learned that he was carrying a whale response team from Juneau to Gustavus, he offered to keep a lookout for the whale on the approach to Gustavus. As everyone on the small plane peered out the windows searching for the whale, passenger Marc Heifetz spotted the buoys and the whale very close to the shore of Pleasant Island, about a mile from where it had been the previous day. This saved precious time that the team would need to try and rescue the whale. By 11 a.m., the response team on the Capelin was with the whale, towing a NPS inflatable boat with a small outboard motor that the team would need to safely get close to the whale. After weeks of storms and rain, the weather was perfect with flat calm seas and sunny skies.

The whale still had limited mobility and was swimming in clockwise circles. It was making 7-9 minute dives and was at the surface for only about 30 seconds. The footage from the drone soon revealed why. The whale had a loop of line through its mouth that led to a large, heavy glob of tangled lines at its tail. In effect, the whale was hog-tied, its body bent sharply to the side as it swam in a predictable clockwise circle each time it came up. The whale also had a distinct healed scar across its back from being hit by a vessel’s propeller; this past injury was unrelated to the entanglement.

For the first hour on scene, the whale was energetic, circling and evading the rescuers, but soon it became a little more accustomed to the inflatable.

Eventually, the team was able to seize a few critical opportunities to make cuts in the line using a specially designed knife mounted on a long pole. The team worked with the whale all day until daylight was disappearing, using specialized tools to remove more of the gear while remaining at a distance from the whale.

Photos taken during the rescue later confirmed that by the end of the effort, the whale had no line left around its tailstock, and that the loop through its mouth had been cut. The whale maintained its curved posture after the lines were cut, but biologists expect that it returned to a more normal form once it was able to move freely again.

After the team made the last cut, the whale disappeared, which the team took as a good sign that it was no longer hampered by the lines and could rapidly swim away.

Recovering the lines and buoys that had snared the whale/Sean Neilson via NPS

The next day, using photos collected during the effort, Neilson was able to identify the whale as SEAK-5490, who was new to the Glacier Bay area in 2023, but had been seen elsewhere in Southeast Alaska in 2021 and 2022 and was first documented by the Alaska Whale Foundation in Frederick Sound. 

Last fall, Alaska Whale Foundation / University of Hawaii researcher Martin van Aswegen used a drone to measure the length of this whale at 32.5 ft (9.9 m). This suggests that SEAK-5490 is a juvenile whale, currently estimated to be 3-4 years old based on measurements of other young Alaska humpbacks.

Knowing the identity of the entangled whale is crucial information that will allow researchers to confirm this whale’s survival and track its whereabouts. You can view sightings of SEAK-5490 and “follow” this whale to be notified when it is next sighted on Happywhale.com.

If you see a stranded, injured, entangled or dead marine mammal in Alaska, immediately call the statewide 24-hour stranding hotline at 877-925-7773 or call the U.S. Coast Guard on VHF channel 16. If you are interested in learning more about whale disentanglement training in your community, start by taking NOAA’s online First Responder Training. Together we can better understand and conserve the whales in our backyards and other precious marine life.

This response was authorized under the authority of NOAA Fisheries’ Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program Permit No. 24359.