Update: Rescue Efforts For Entangled Gray Whale Called Off For Today

Updated at 6:36 p.m. April 18:

Dean Gomersall of the Pacific Marine Mammal Center just told Patch that it looks like the whale search will be called off for the day. The whale, nicknamed June, still hasn't been found.

"There's no real concern for the whale's health," Gomersall said. "It's really healthy, so we'll just start looking again in the morning. He has plenty of blubber to last awhile." ( ...)

---

An older, 40-foot gray whale was found entangled in a net near Laguna Beach Tuesday, and a rescue team followed the animal south out to sea working to free it. 

A team from the Pacific Marine Mammal Center was assembled at 1:15 p.m. when the call came in that a whale had become stuck in a net, said Melissa Sciacca, the center's director of development. 

The team was able to attach three buoys to the whale to help track it, Sciacca said. The whale was initially towing about 50 to 100 feet of line stuck on its left pectoral fin and another line was stuck in the whale's mouth, Sciacca said.

The team "disentangled a good portion of the line that was on theanimal,'' before suspending its work around 6:30 p.m., Sciacca said.

The team will resume its efforts to free the whale some time after daybreak Wednesday, Sciacca said.

The Coast Guard has been asked to help in locating the whale, Sciacca said. The crew was being "extra cautious as the location of the entanglement poses the highest risk to the rescue team,'' Sciacca said. The whale appeared to be a healthy adult and the entanglement appeared to be fairly recent, Sciacca said.

The whale was about 10 miles offshore of San Onofre as of 6 p.m. This is the third rescue the center has been involved in over the past month, Sciacca said.

In late March, a gray whale was found dead near Port J in Long Beach Harbor, according to the Orange County Register.

At the time, authorities were investigating whether the whale was the same one rescued from an entangled line off of Dana Point.

 and  contributed to this report.

Patch will follow this story as it develops.