Whale Watching - Dyer Island Conservation Trust Helps Save Entangled Humpback Whale

(Reprinted with permission from Soné Boshoff, www.dict.org.za)

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Wilfred Chivell of the local disentanglement unit was called on Saturday 27 June by Jason Stafford of Ivanhoe Safaris in Gansbaai, to inform him of an entangled whale in Walker Bay close to the Kelders caves.

After consulting with Mike Meyer of MCM and informing Deon Geldenhuys of Cape Nature, Wilfred Chivell Dyer Island Cruises (DIC) and Marine Dynamics (MD) and founder of Dyer Island Conservation Trust (DICT), Michael Rutsen, White Shark Diving Unlimited (WSDU), Kira and Kwezi of DIC set out to help the whale on Calypso. Stan had people on board to form a back up for holding and picking up buoys.

At 14:20, a humpback whale was spotted with a 50 m yellow 20mm polyethylene rope trailing behind it and with a red and white and a yellow buoy attached a meter behind the fluke.

After assessing the situation, we attached the boat to the whale to tire the animal down. We added two big red floats to the whale and after an hour started to cut ropes loose. The tail was entangled around the base and around the flukes. It was difficult as the tail never emerged and in the process of removing the buoys, a cutting device and two extension poles were lost in the process. The two big and one small buoys, a piece of metal “anchor” and 50 meters of rope were removed, but a piece of rope still remained around the tail base and fluke.

We attached ourselves to the whale twice after that as the remainder of rope was very short. We tried to unravel the rope, did another cut and attached a float to the whale once more. As the whale moved into the breaker zone, we had to fall back to wait for her to go deeper again. The motion of the breaking surf freed her from the remaining rope and float and she swam free. We got close to her once more and could see the white marks around the tail, but no ropes were attached any more.

The whale was remarkably calm from the start and allowed us to come very close without showing any evasive behaviour. Although we lost a cutting device, two poles and a buoy, we were fortunate to free the heavily entangled whale within two hours. We will try to recover the buoy on the beach tomorrow.

Click here for more about Dyer Island whale watching