Drone video shows rescue of grey whale tangled in fishing line near Vancouver Island
Fisheries and Oceans Canada says a grey whale that was reported caught in a fishing net in Nootka Sound last week has been freed after several days of effort.
Paul Cottrell, marine mammal coordinator for the DFO, tells CTV News Vancouver Island the first call about the whale came in on July 27 from the group of First Nations fishers in whose gear the animal got tangled.
"It broke away and it had at least 60 feet of gill net on it," Cottrell says. "We had a team out looking, but we weren't able to locate it until we got another report a couple days ago."
The whale, still trailing the gear, had moved up to Esperanza Inlet, where it was spotted by a recreational fisherman.
Cottrell says a nearby DFO crew was able to attach a satellite tag buoy to the debris trailing the whale and begin removing some of the net, but they couldn't get all of it.
The next day, the whale went out to sea.
"He went 20, 30 miles offshore, so we couldn't get him," Cottrell says. "Luckily, he came in shore on Saturday, so that was yesterday, and so we went out and had a team ready to go."
Cottrell says the grey whale is quite young, possibly only a couple of years old. He says the whale is about 26 feet long and may actually be too young to have been identified and named in DFO's tracking system.
Crews located the whale using the latest satellite ping and a drone, encountering the animal even farther north, off of Brooks Peninsula.
"We were able to work with the whale," Cottrell says. "It was about four hours. It was a bad one."
He says he had to make 10 different cuts in the gear - which he described as "a mass of meshes and corks and lead line" stuck around the animal's tail - to free the whale.
Drone video of the effort shared with CTV News shows the whale thrashing and rolling to break free of the gear, as crews hold onto the net and use poles to loosen and cut it.
Eventually, the animal breaks free, and can be seen swimming away without any fishing gear left stuck to it.
"We were all exhausted, but it's so nice to actually have an endgame and actually have the drone show that all the gear's off," Cottrell says. "Usually it takes, you know, a couple weeks for us to verify because the whale takes off so fast."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
How more than 100 women realized they may have dated, been deceived by the same man
An Ontario man is being accused of changing his name, profession and life story multiple times to potentially more than 100 women online before leaving some out thousands of dollars.

Mother charged with sexual abuse of toddler in Edmonton area after FBI tip
A Strathcona County toddler has been rescued from suspected sexual exploitation, and the child's mother has been charged, police said.
LeBron James becomes NBA's all-time scoring leader, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
LeBron James is the NBA's new career scoring leader. With a stepback jump shot with 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night, James pushed his career total to 38,388 points on Tuesday night and broke the record that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar held for nearly four decades.
Biden in State of Union urges U.S. Congress: 'Finish the job'
U.S. President Joe Biden exhorted Congress Tuesday night to work with him to 'finish the job' of rebuilding the economy and uniting the nation as he delivered a State of the Union address aimed at reassuring a country beset by pessimism and fraught political divisions.
Fears grow for untold numbers buried by Turkiye earthquake as deaths pass 7,700
Rescuers raced against time early Wednesday to pull survivors from the rubble before they succumbed to cold weather two days after an earthquake tore through southern Turkiye and war-ravaged northern Syria. The death toll climbed above 7,700 and was expected to rise further.
Canadian military plane heads home after two surveillance flights over Haiti
A Canadian Armed Forces surveillance plane was heading home on Tuesday after two intelligence-collecting flights over Haiti.
On list of 50 'most Instagrammable' places, only 1 is in Canada
A new ranking by global travel site Big 7 Travel has revealed the most Instagrammable places for people to visit in 2023, but only one Canadian location, Banff, is among them.
Spy balloon part of a broader Chinese military surveillance operation, U.S. intel sources tell CNN
U.S. intelligence officials believe that the recently recovered Chinese spy balloon is part of an extensive surveillance program run by the Chinese military, according to multiple American officials familiar with the intelligence.
From $55 to $130: Which Canadians plan to spend the most this Valentine's Day?
As Valentine's Day approaches, many Canadians are preparing to celebrate by taking their loved ones to dinner and buying them gifts, but how much are we spending on this day coast to coast?