Crews Try to Save Blue Whale Trapped in Netting

Efforts to free a blue whale spotted today in the channel between Catalina Island and the Palos Verdes Peninsula trailing a line attached to a buoy will resume in the morning, officials at the scene said.

The distressed behemoth was spotted about 1:30 p.m. by the passengers of a whale watching vessel.

Members of Marine Animal Rescue aboard an inflatable power boat attached a second line and a larger buoy to the first.

Los Angeles County Lifeguards also responded and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disentanglement team was dispatched, officials said.

Harbor Breeze Cruises founder and boat captain Dan Salas said the tangled whale was spotted during one of the company’s cruises done in partnership with the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.

Whale watchers first saw the leviathan -- estimated to be about 75-feet long -- about five miles south of Point Fermin Lighthouse in San Pedro. It was pulling about 300 feet of line attached to a buoy, Salas said.

“We’ve seen a lot of blue whales these past few months, and everything seemed ordinary at first, but then our captain noticed the whale was dragging a buoy,” said Salas, who has been in the whale-watching business since 1990. “We immediately notified the Coast Guard and NOAA, and our captain stayed with the whale.”

Salas said the whale has been swimming, diving for the krill it feeds on and breathing regularly.

Blue whales are the largest mammals on earth and are thought to be the largest mammals to have ever lived on the planet.

City News Service; Photo: Wikimedia Commons