A young humpback whale was freed from a “severe” entanglement off the Oregon Coast on July 26, but the entanglement left the whale’s jaw permanently open. A response team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Oregon said because of the injury, it will not survive. Along the West Coast during the summer, humpback whales are frequently entangled, NOAA said, with more than 30 confirmed humpback entanglements reported last year.
The humpback whale was disentangled about 20 miles off the Oregon Coast, outside of Newport, after a multi-agency effort involving researchers, trained responders, the U.S. Coast Guard and a local commercial fisherman, according to NOAA. Another humpback whale washed ashore dead on July 7, entangled by sablefish gear off the Oregon coast.
“This is truly a heartbreaker because of the whale’s injuries, but we will learn so much from this case that can help us prevent future entanglements,” said Lauren Saez in a press release. Saez helped coordinate the response for NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region.
Whale anchored by fishing gear
The whale was first spotted July 23 by Oregon State University research assistant Craig Hayslip while surveying the coast from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter for whales and fishing gear. Hayslip reported the entangled whale to NOAA’s West Coast Entanglement Hotline. Responders reached the whale the following morning and found it anchored by fishing gear extending about 400 feet to the seafloor. Underwater video recorded with a GoPro camera showed a line running through the whale’s mouth.
“The whale’s jaw was wide open beyond anything you would expect to see,” Jim Rice, who manages the Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network at Oregon State University, said in the release. “We could tell by the angle it was not natural.”
Entanglement specialists Doug Sandilands and Jenn Tackaberry of Cascadia Research Collective joined responders from Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute and the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Despite assistance from the U.S. Coast Guard, the team could not free the whale because the gear was too heavy to move.
“We realized if a whale couldn’t move it, then we humans weren’t going to move it, either,” Hayslip said in the release. Rough weather delayed another rescue attempt until July 26.
Rescue effort frees whale
NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Take Reduction Team and commercial fisherman, Poggy Lapham brought his vessel, Michele Ann, to assist the response. Using the vessel’s hydraulic winch, Lapham and his crew lifted the gear enough for responders in a smaller boat to cut the line attached to the whale. The whale then swam free. The crew recovered more than 3,000 feet of line, five sablefish pots and several commercial Dungeness crab traps from Oregon and Washington.
NOAA Fisheries said the condition of the gear suggests it may have been lost or abandoned. As part of the investigation, they will be following up with the owner of the gear. Responders collected DNA samples from the recovered gear to determine which humpback population the young humpback belonged to.
Focus on preventing future entanglements
Lapham said the entanglement should be a wake-up call for the fishing industry to ask, “How can we better incentivize gear retrieval and tracking of lost gear to reduce this risk?”
He said while commercial Dungeness crab gear must carry identifying tags, sablefish pots are not required to be tagged, making it more difficult to determine how entanglements occur. According to NOAA Public Affairs Officer Michael Milstein, the July 26 rescue marked one of three documented whale entanglements off the Oregon Coast in 2026.
NOAA reminds the public that only trained and federally authorized responders should attempt to free entangled whales. Anyone who spots an entangled whale should report it to the West Coast Entanglement Hotline, 1-877-767-9425, and stay clear of the animal until trained responders arrive.
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