Biologists are tracking the recovery of a juvenile humpback whale rescued from a life-threatening entanglement in the Salish Sea, even as Canadian officials have received reports of more entangled humpbacks in British Columbia.
A juvenile humpback whale entangled in more than 200 feet of rope and then freed earlier this month has been spotted off Galiano Island in British Columbia, prompting cautious relief among biologists who are monitoring the whale’s recovery.
The whale, named Starry Knight, was seen by whale watchers last Friday, and was breaching and appeared “stronger and energetic” according to an announcement from The Whale Museum and Cascadia Research Collective, which coordinated the rescue effort with NOAA Fisheries.
The dramatic rescue, which occurred on July 16, was captured by drone footage and shows the whale heading west in the Strait of Juan de Fuca trailing a long line of synthetic rope attached to a tracking buoy. Rescuers approached the whale on an inflatable Zodiac and used long poles to cut and remove the line from the whale’s fluke.
The response team was part of the Pacific Northwest Entanglement Response Network, which pools resources to respond to entanglements of marine mammals in Washington and Oregon. The Network includes The Whale Museum, SeaDoc Society, SR3, WDFW, and Cascadia Research Collective and is overseen by NOAA Fisheries.
Starry Knight was initially spotted in Canadian waters, and rescuers from both sides of the border worked together to track the 30-foot-long yearling as it moved through the Salish Sea. When rescuers caught up with it in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the whale was not using its tail to propel itself through the water, instead relying on its front flippers and swimming in a flying motion.
“As soon as the final line was cut, the whale began slowly swimming away,” said Doug Sandilands, a lead responder at Cascadia. “The injuries were significant, so we are glad to see that the whale watching community found Starry Knight a few days later behaving normally, even breaching. We’re hoping the whale will stay in the region long enough for the research and whale watching community to document the full recovery process.”
Starry Knight, whose sex has not yet been determined by biologists, was first spotted after the rescue by Matt Stolmeier of the commercial whale watching outfit Outer Island Excursions. Responders also thanked other Pacific Whale Watch Association members, who “were on high alert to keep an eye out for the whale,” the announcement said.
The rescue of Starry Knight is just one of several that have happened in recent weeks involving humpbacks near the Salish Sea. This was the first large whale disentanglement in Puget Sound since 2020, but officials in Canada have had their hands full with several entangled humpbacks along the outer banks of British Columbia.
This week, a whale response team at Oceans and Fisheries Canada (DFO) had just completed the rescue of a humpback whale near Caamano Sound when they received word of two more potential entanglements in the northern part of the Salish Sea.
“It’s kind of coinciding with a huge influx and large numbers of humpbacks in inshore waters in British Columbia,” said Paul Cottrell, Pacific Region Marine Mammal Coordinator at DFO. “With the summer season, there is a fair amount of gear in inshore waters, and we are seeing, I think, this pulse [of entanglements].”
International bans on whaling in the 1960s along with conservation efforts and federal protections for marine mammals have contributed to a massive recovery of humpback whales in the Salish Sea, with their populations rising by about 8% per year. That means a lot more of the whales in local waters, officials say, but also an increase in potentially deadly entanglements in fishing gear and other marine debris.
Information on how to report a sighting of an entangled whale is available on the Cascadia Research Collective website. More updates on Starry Knight’s recovery and details about the rescue team and the Pacific Northwest Entanglement Response Network are available here.