Tangled Blue Whale Believed to Be Near Newport Beach

Crews planned to wait today until boaters spot a blue whale trailing a line with a buoy attached before resuming efforts to free the 80-foot-long mammal from the line, a rescuer said.

It was last seen swimming south from Catalina Island and could be around Newport Beach today, said Peter Wallerstein of Marine Animal Rescue, who said the whale might be in distress but it isn’t in danger.

“He’ll last a long time. He’s moving. He kept swimming away from us,” said Wallerstein.

The rescuers attached a large buoy to the rope the whale was dragging to make it easier to find, he said. The whale could have a net or a crab pot attached to it and rescuers were using poles with knives attached to free it.

“Nobody has ever tried to rescue a Blue whale before,” Wallerstein said. The technique is used for Gray whales.

Eighty feet is normal size for a Blue whale, he said. It also makes the rescue “really dangerous. The tail could swamp the boat.”

Wallerstein urges any boaters who see the whale not to attempt to rescue it themselves because of that danger.

The distressed behemoth was spotted about 1:30 p.m. Friday 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.

The effort to cut the whale free was suspended for the day amid dangerous conditions as nightfall approached, 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 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 was swimming, diving for the krill it feeds on and breathing regularly, although it was moving more slowly as the day progressed.

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