Humpback Whale DilemmaSea

Humpback Whale Dilemma

Sea turtle caught up in fishing gear.

Sea Turtle caught in net

Entangled right whale. (Photo Provincetown Centre for Coastal Studies)

Five thousand humpback whales are expected to arrive for summer feeding off Newfoundland. This arrival represents nature's usual arrangement with humpback whales. The problem is that marine animals become tangled, stranded, and end up dying - or in the case of whales - drowning because they are unable to free themselves from the snarl they find themselves in when nylon gill netting captures their enormous bulks.

Whales, and humpback whales in particular are under great threat around fishing gear. Their enormous size and the numbers in which they present themselves at this time of year make them vulnerable to being caught in this existential dilemma. Wayne Ledwell knows all about the problem. He and his wife Julie Huntington have responded to calls in Newfoundland along the 176,000 kilometres of coastline to free humpbacks and minke whales, leatherback sea turtles, sharks and other unfortunate caught marine creatures.

"Sometimes the whale is caught up and there's just so much gear on, you have no idea how to get it out when you start. And this whale is looking at you while you're at it. You can follow its eyes. It's watching you. And then at the last of it, it's almost like the whale is ... giving you its tail, saying: 'I'm going. I'm out of here'." A sensate creature with an intelligence of its own in a desperate state, dependent on the nature of compassion exhibited by another sensate creature who views its dilemma and proceeds to take ameliorative action.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is uncertain how many whales have met death in this dreadful manner, but it is determined to make that as few as possible. A four-month contract is signed with agencies like Mr. Ledwell's Whale Release and Strandings, a non-profit out of Portugal Cove-St.Philip's. A contract valued at $60,500 was exchanged with Whale Release and Strandings last year, and will likely be contracted for again this year.