Humpback Whale "Caught in Lobster Pot" Off NJ

Photographs of the humpback whale near the Ambrose Channel from the U.S. Coast Guard

The U.S. Coast Guard says that a 500-yard safety zone is being enforced around a humpback whale, which is "entangled in a lobster pot [and netting] and netting eight miles east of Sandy Hook near the approach to Ambrose Channel." The whale, which Newsday says is "a juvenile humpback, about 25 to 30 feet long," was seen on the surface and breathing.

The Coast Guard, which considers the situation possibly life-threatening, said, "We are ensuring the safety of both the animal and boaters," and noted that an "entanglement team from Center Coastal Studies" will cut the whale free today. NOAA's whale disentanglement director Jamison Smith told CityRoom it can take a while before an entanglement is even noticed, "With an entanglement it can go on for months and months. Sometimes it can die and sink because it’s in such bad shape. It has depleted all blubber.”

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By Jen Chung in News on February 26, 2009 10:18 AM

Comments [rss]

Clarice City

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/whaling/great-whale-trail/mrsplashypants

I think that comment deserves explanation.

Clarice City

Mr. Splashy Pants!!!

StinaLES

- "Without us, there would be no one around to detangle them from these predicaments!"

Actually, without us, they wouldnt have garbage/abandoned equipment polluting our waters and posing such dangers.

Legalist

I believe that's the humor of his comment.

jibbly

The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli...

palestine

"NOAA's whale disentanglement director"

Who would've thought such a job title existed?

NannyState

Or that "entanglement team from Center Coastal Studies". Weren't they the ones dealing with Lindsay Lohan and her girlfriend last week?

Son of Spam

Freakin' whales...what would they do without humans? Without us, there would be no one around to detangle them from these predicaments!

:)

Zyskandar A Jaimot

The Whales Sonata

(Kenneth Frazelle's sonata for cello and piano as performed by YoYo Ma

and Jeffrey Kahane at the Zeiterion Theater, New Bedford Massachusetts, Friday evening, September 15, 1989)

Just as harpooners poised for a stanza

their arms tattooed with multicolored swirls of narrative

listened in secret for runs and cadenzas

that would mark passages from creatures

of the polyphonic sea. We wait

for the striking of the ivory keys

followed by the plucked notes

of the cello master.

Practiced agile hands cause wood and str1ng

to vibrate. Each player linked together

by chords of past and future.

Which wrap us in splendid sound.

We hear phrases that become forged barbs

hurled deep into the mind of public fantasy

which seeps beyond this gathering. Toward

long lyrical lines cast upon the waters that

reverberate beyond the safeharbor of New Bedford

which once spouted wealth.

Far out upon the flood that has never receded

liquid tremulous excite the great giantbacks

who couple and begin to dance.

While we sit straight-backed. Unaware

that the increased tempo causes flukes to crash

like cymbals to the tuning of wind.

Warm-blooded bodies propel themselves

up to an air of ungrounded vision.

Blowholes fill with hot fragrant oils

of passionate release. Pure images created

and scored by time pulse in adagios of primal embrace.

Hundreds of whales soar and breathe. Shameless

exhibitionists who will leap again and again.

In a modern arrangement that will never drown-out

the quavers in a timpani of echoes

from the bloody coda of harpoon guns.

And we politely applaud for the beauty of it all

forgetting whose tears stain the oceans blue.