This mornings whale watching cruise turned into an ecotourism event, we found a whale about 5 miles out, just after 9am. Pretty quickly it became clear that the poor Humpback was tangled up in a net. We followed the whale for most of our time out as we alerted the proper authorities and got involved in coordinating a whale rescue.
It did not appear that the whale was struggling with the net at this time as it was still performing fluke up dives and traveling at about 3 knots (too fast for the net to be removed). There was quite a large amount of net wrapped around the whales head and along the body, around the dorsal fin, when he performed fluke up dives we could also see some netting coming off the tail. Photos are attached below, a warning that they may be upsetting to some viewers.
At this time we haven’t heard any updates about the whale but if we hear anything it will be posted here so watch this space.