Marine rescuers ‘delighted’ after finally freeing whale trapped in fishing rope for 28hrs
A humpback whale has been successfully freed after becoming entangled in rope at a salmon farm off the Isle of Skye for 28 hours.
The marine mammal was discovered at Invertote salmon farm early Thursday morning, with rope wrapped multiple times around its head and left fin.
British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) mobilised its large whale disentanglement team from across the UK to carry out the complex rescue operation. The exhausted whale was finally freed on Friday afternoon, with rescuers continuing to monitor its movements.
A member of the public first spotted the distressed whale at around 8.30am on Thursday and alerted BDMLR. The charity reported the whale had become “visibly entangled in rope” and was “unable to swim freely.”
Local community members and emergency services joined the rescue effort alongside BDMLR specialists.
Organic Sea Harvest (OSH), which operates the Invertote facility, expressed relief at the outcome. “We’re delighted to confirm that the humpback whale entangled at our salmon farm has been freed,” the company said in a social media post.
Farm staff and BDMLR expert divers “worked tirelessly” since discovering the whale, OSH added. Martin Boon of BDMLR revealed the rescue team used a specialised technique developed in the US to free the whale.
The method, first used in Europe in 2011, involves cutting rope in a specific sequence using special knives attached to poles.
“Obviously it is humpback – they are big and powerful,” Boon told the BBC, adding: “If it thrashes about and it catches anybody in the team, that’s not going to end well.”
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Small inflatable boats provided by Organic Sea Harvest allowed the rescue team to get close to the whale during the “potentially risky” operation.
During the rescue, it emerged the whale had been previously entangled and was carrying old ropes not used by the salmon farm.
These existing ropes had caught on the farm moorings as the whale swam past, OSH explained.
BDMLR teams were able to free the whale not only from the farm equipment but also remove the old ropes it had been carrying.
This marks the second successful rescue for BDMLR’s large whale disentanglement team in recent months, following their freeing of another humpback whale caught in creel ropes in Loch Fyne last November.
However, not all whale entanglements in Scottish waters have such positive outcomes. A humpback whale found dead in a Highland loch in May 2023 likely perished after becoming caught in creel fishing lines, according to experts.
Similar fatalities have been recorded in East Lothian and Caithness following entanglements with fishing gear.These incidents can involve active fishing equipment or “ghost gear” – abandoned ropes and nets from fishing boats.
In a stark example from 2019, a sperm whale that died on the Isle of Harris was found with a 100kg “litter ball” of fishing nets, rope and plastic waste in its stomach.