PORTLAND, Maine — The number of whales entangled in fishing gear has declined recently, but the entanglements remain a critical threat to rare species, the federal government said in a report released Tuesday.
There were 53 confirmed cases of large whales entangled in gear in the U.S. in 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday. That was a 25% decline from the previous year’s 75 entanglements and a lower figure than the 13-year average, the agency said.
Entanglement in fishing gear is one of the two biggest threats to declining species of whales, particularly North Atlantic right whales, which number less than 340 in the world. The other threat is collisions with ships.
Every coastal region except Alaska saw a decrease in whale entanglements, NOAA said. No large whale entanglements were reported in the Southeast and Pacific Islands regions.
The agency said it will take more research to determine the cause of the decline in entanglements, and it’s possible that the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption of both fishing activities and data reporting could have played a role.
It’s also possible that factors unrelated to the pandemic could have played a role, as “some regions have reported large-scale environmental changes, like marine heat waves, that may also be affecting large whale entanglement rates and reporting,” the agency said in the report.
More than half the entangled whales were humpback whales, which are popular with whale watchers and have a relatively stable worldwide population. In 2020, the Pacific saw 19 humpback entanglements compared to 14 in the Atlantic. Humpback whales are the most frequently reported entangled large whale species, representing 69% of all confirmed entanglements since 2007.
Four of the whales were North Atlantic right whales, which are in the midst of population decline due to recent years of high mortality and poor reproduction.
The right whales give birth off Florida and Georgia and migrate north to the waters off New England and Canada to feed. Scientists and conservationists have sounded alarms in recent years that warming waters seem to be causing the whales to stray from protected areas of ocean in search of food.
The current level of entanglements is more than whales can stand, said Kristen Monsell, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group. The group and others have pushed for tighter restrictions on commercial fishing to prevent the whales from entanglement.
“These reports show far too many endangered whales are caught in fishing gear, particularly because reported entanglements are just the tip of the iceberg,” Monsell said.
Twelve additional cases were reported, but those entanglements could not be confirmed with the information received, and the whales were not relocated by network members, the report stated. Those 12 additional reports were tracked, but were not included in the overall annual total.
To report an entangled whale, call (888) 256-9840 or contact the U.S. Coast Guard on VHF CH-16.