A marine park ranger involved in his first whale rescue says freeing a 10m humpback whale – first sighted entangled in ropes just north of Two Rocks – was an amazing experience.

Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions senior ranger Ben Leeson said the job of freeing the whale caught up in ropes from two rock lobster pots was carried out over three days.

Mr Leeson said they got a phone call last Thursday afternoon from two members of the public about the entangled whale just north of Two Rocks and when they got to the site they luckily still had their eyes on the whale.

“We were able to put a satellite tag on the whale so that was basically connecting up to the entanglement that was on the whale with about a 20m line and that enables us to keep track of the whale and where it travels overnight so we don’t have to do any operations in the evening,’’ he said.

“The satellite tags are funded by the western rock lobster industry – the commercial rock lobster fishers – we’ve got a few of those up and down the state – so wherever we see a whale the first thing we do is try to actively get one of those trackers on and that’s just a massive not only safety advantage for us so we don’t have to work after dark it’s also great for the whale because then if we do lose sight of it we’ll get constant updates of where it moves and how far it travels.

“The whale was pretty stressed out when we first got to it on the Thursday afternoon.”

He said it was flipping its tail about and was quite badly tangled up with the ropes through its mouth and then around its pectoral fin.

“It was quite a stressed animal but still very lively, very powerful and had a lot of energy left in it.”

Estimating how long the whale had been entangled was difficult.

“The only way we can do that – is through Fisheries down the line – we give them the details of the rock lobster pots – the coding on them to say whose pots they actually are – one recreational set and one professional set and that will give us a rough idea.

“Obviously from that we’re going to know where the pots were placed.’’

On the second day their goal was to try and slow the whale down as much as possible by adding big red inflatable buoys to it and clipping it onto the trailing line.

Then they slowly moved them closer and closer to the tail of the animal and as they got closer it increased the resistance and drag on the animal to slow it down and tire it out.

“This obviously is quite stressful for the animal but it’s the only way to safely go ahead and cut the ropes to free it.

“By about 3.30pm 4pm we’d actually tired the whale out enough so we could get close enough to put some camera gear underwater (just a GoPro on a stick).”

People on the little inflatable then lent over the side with their heads in the water to look and see what the entanglement involved in as much detail as possible.

From that they decided what rope/s they were going to cut because if they cut the wrong ropes they could lose part of the entanglement but the whale might swim away with ropes still attached.

“We managed to make one cut on the rope that was coming out of the whale’s mouth on the Friday afternoon just on dark and then Saturday morning we had moved to about seven nautical miles north of Rottnest and  after monitoring throughout the night through the satellite tracker) we got out there to the site were it was and there was no whale attached and we collected all the gear that was attached.’’

They were very confident the whale swam free probably in the early hours of the morning and shook free the last of the gear just with that one very well-placed cut.

He said the fact it had moved from north of Two Rocks to north of Rottnest Island in that time even though they were actively trying to slow it down gave an idea of the power of the animal.

“It had five massive, big floats sitting about 1m to 2m behind its tail and it still managed to travel about 20 nautical miles over two days.”

Although for him and two others it was their first experience of freeing a whale, there had also been some experienced hands involved who had completed multiple whale rescues.

“As much as training prepares you for what to do and the process involved it’s the power of the animal – you can’t prepare for that it’s pretty phenomenal.

“Being out there was quite scary and enthralling at the same time – adrenaline building – but also pretty amazing to be able to have that impact and get out there and get the whale safely free and everyone stay safe and gets home safe at the end of the day which is a big one as there have been people seriously injured and have died in the process of doing it.’’

In 2017 CBC News reported that a volunteer had died while freeing an entangled whale in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Mr Leeson’s role as a senior ranger for the Shoalwater Islands and Mindarie marine parks includes compliance work, helping sick and injured wildlife, maintenance of markers, boardwalks and jetties, monitoring involving diving work and a lot of education and public awareness as well.

He wanted to give a big thanks to the two members of the public who spotted the whale just north of Two Rocks and phoned it through to the wildcare helpline.

“They were the first people to call it in and without them obviously we may not have got to that whale.’’

Watch the video at Yancheap News Online.

This article appeared on Yanchep News Online on 13 June 2023.