page_title: North Atlantic right whale
section_title: Fishing gear entanglement
hierarchical_section_title: North Atlantic right whale / Threats / Fishing gear entanglement
caption_attribution_description: NOAA Fisheries is responsible for the Large Whale Disentanglement Program which conducts disentanglement operations, research, and management to enhance the recovery of large whale species. In this photo taken off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, NOAA staff and external partners perform close operations to disentangle a North Atlantic right whale. The animal was observed entangled with gear wrapped around both flippers and encircling its entire body. The rescue team was able to remove enough gear to allow the whale to shed most of the remaining gear on its own. The bow person is Dr. 'Stormy' Mayo of the Center for Coastal Studies, the middleman with the cutting tool is Jamison Smith of NOAA Fisheries, and the driver in the stern of the vessel is Chris Slay of Coastwise Consulting.
context_page_description: The North Atlantic right whale is a baleen whale, one of three right whale species belonging to the genus Eubalaena, all of which were formerly classified as a single species. Because of their docile nature, their slow surface-skimming feeding behaviors, their tendencies to stay close to the coast, and their high blubber content, right whales were once a preferred target for whalers.
  At present, they are among the most endangered whales in the world, and they are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act and Canada's Species at Risk Act. There are about 400 individuals in existence in the western North Atlantic Ocean—they migrate between feeding grounds in the Labrador Sea and their winter calving areas off Georgia and Florida, an ocean area with heavy shipping traffic. In the eastern North Atlantic, on the other hand—with a total population reaching into the low teens at most—scientists believe that they may already be functionally extinct. Vessel strikes and entanglement in fixed fishing gear, which together account for nearly half of all North Atlantic right whale mortality since 1970, are their two greatest threats to recovery.
context_section_description: The next greatest source of human-induced mortality is entanglement in fixed fishing gear such as bottom-set groundfish gillnet gear, cod traps and lobster pots.  Between 1970 and October 2006, there have been 8 instances where entanglements have been the direct cause of death of North Atlantic right whales.  This represents 11% of all deaths documented during that period.  From 1986 to 2005, there were a total of 61 confirmed reports of entanglements, including the aforementioned mortalities.  It is likely that official figures underestimate the actual impacts of entanglement.  It is believed that chronically entangled animals may in fact sink upon death, due to loss of buoyancy from depleted blubber reserves, and therefore escape detection.
  Beyond direct mortality, it is believed that a whale that survives an entanglement episode may suffer other negative effects that may weaken it, reduce fertility, or otherwise affect it so that it is more likely to become vulnerable to further injury. Because whales often free themselves of gear following an entanglement event, scarring may be a better indicator of fisheries interaction than entanglement sightings. A 2012 analysis of the scarification of right whales showed that through 2009, 82.9% of all North Atlantic right whales have experienced at least one fishing gear entanglement; 59.0% have had more than one such experience. In all, from 1980–2009, an average of 15.5% of the population are entangled in fishing gear annually.
  In 2007, so as to protect northern right whales from serious injury or mortality from entanglement in gillnet gear in their calving area in Atlantic Ocean waters off the southeast United States, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) revised regulations implementing the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan (ALWTRP).  This plan expands the restricted area to include the waters off of South Carolina, Georgia, and Northern Florida. It also prohibits gillnet fishing or even gillnet possession in those waters for a period of five months, beginning on November 15 of each year, which coincides with the annual right whale calving season.
  When entanglement prevention efforts fail, disentanglement efforts occasionally succeed, despite the fact that such efforts are more frequently impossible or unsuccessful.  Nevertheless, they do in fact make a significant difference because saving a few whales in a population of only 400 has a large positive effect against mortality rates. During the period 2004–2008 there were at least four documented cases of entanglements for which the intervention of disentanglement teams averted a likely death of a right whale. For the first time in 2009 and again in 2011, scientists successfully used chemical sedation of an entangled whale to reduce stress on the animal and to reduce the time spent working with it. After disentangling the whale, scientists attached a satellite tracking tag, administered a dose of antibiotics to treat entanglement wounds and then another drug to reverse the sedation. Despite concerns that the trauma might impair reproduction, researchers confirmed in January 2013 that three disentangled whales had given birth.
  Due to recently increased presences of right whales in Cape Breton to St. Lawrence regions, increases in entanglements and possible ship strikes have been confirmed as well including serious fatal cases involving three whales between June 24 and July 13, 2015.
caption: Disentanglement by NOAA staff off Jacksonville, Florida
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