With the start of humpback migration, some whales won't make it unscathed

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Key Points

The migration season for eastern humpback whales has commenced along Australia’s east coast.
Each year, no fewer than 32 whales get entangled in fishing gear, an occurrence authorities aim to prevent.
It is suspected that the true number of whales injured during migration is even higher.

Last December, a young humpback whale was found deceased on a NSW beach.

Entangled in fishing ropes and floats, it became exhausted as it attempted its yearly migration along Australia’s east coast.

The whale was freed by rescue teams but succumbed a few days later.

Dr. Olaf Meynecke, a marine scientist from Griffith University, noted that the whale was seriously affected by its entrapment.

“It was clear from footage that the whale had been starving for weeks; it was quite emaciated and infested with sea lice, which thrive when whales slow down,” he remarked.

Two divers look to free an entangled humpback whale in the ocean.

Divers look to free an entangled humpback whale off Yamba in northern NSW. Source: AAP / AP

Meynecke said more needs to be done to prevent whale entanglements.

Over the past five years, the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service said it had received an average of 32 reports of entangled whales per year.

More than 80 per cent of those entanglements involved fishing ropes and floats.

Meynecke said this is only the number of whales that humans have encountered, and the true figure is likely double.

Commercial fishers like Mitch Sanders want to do something about it.

A trap fisherman working mainly out of Terrigal and Pretty Beach on the NSW Central Coast, Sanders has joined a program run by Oceanwatch Australia aiming to reduce whale entanglement risk from fishing gear.

“We don’t want entanglements either, we lose our gear, it costs us time and money to get the gear back,” he said.

“We aim to collaborate closely with the whales since they’re here to stay, so it’s crucial we find ways to prevent such entanglements.”

New technologies

Sanders is trialling new technologies like a ropeless attachment for his traps, designed in the United States.

Instead of running a rope through the ocean, the device contains rope inside a metal cage, which is only released once the fisher triggers it to unlock electronically, so they can retrieve the trap.

However, the devices are expensive and Australian fishers work differently from their US counterparts.

“It works, it’s very good, but it’s cumbersome and very time-consuming, and as we run single traps on every rope, over there they’re running up to 40 traps on one rope,” Sanders said.

“So, if it takes a bit longer to get that first one to the surface, it’s not so bad, but if we have to do it for every trap, it makes it a bit hard.”

Humpback whale populations along Australia’s east coast have recovered significantly since whaling was banned, increasing from a few hundred in the 1960s to approximately 40,000 today.

OceanWatch CEO Lowri Pryce said it means the oceans are extra busy.

“Fishermen are acutely aware of the increasing number of whales over the years. We seek co-existence; we want whales to migrate safely and for fishers to navigate safely as well,” she stated.

Pryce said as part of the program, Australian fishers are talking with their international counterparts, particularly those in the US, Canada and New Zealand.

“We are really trying to hunt down as many ideas as possible and then connect and bring people over so we can adapt. Every operation is very different, so having that suite of different gears is really important,” she said.

Calls for consistent fishing regulations

Fishing regulations vary across Australia, but scientists like Meynecke are calling for a unified approach to prevent whale entanglements.

“There have been some smaller projects to address it, but there is no major attempt to actually mitigate the entanglement and the rise of these entanglements,” he said.

Passionate citizens like Steve Trikoulis have stepped up.

He’s the vice president of the Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia, a non-profit organisation which focuses on rescuing and protecting marine mammals, including whales.

“Generally, what happens is you’ll see a whale breach or do a blow or anything like that, but what we’re looking for is like a leading trail behind the whale, because that then gives us an indication that something is entangled,” he said.

Meynecke said changes to the fishing industry are important, calling for more research into making mitigation technologies more accessible.

“If people were more aware of the fact that we actually have quite a lot of whales that are entangled in gear and that this is an ethical concern, but also simply an animal welfare concern for us to just make sure that this doesn’t really happen in the future.”

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