Photos from Whale Watch Vessels Help Responders Free Entangled Humpback Whale in Monterey Bay

Whale watch operators in Monterey Bay provided critical photographs and sightings that led an authorized team from Marine Life Studies to free a humpback whale in July. It had been entangled in commercial Dungeness crab fishing gear for more than a month.

Photos and sighting details from whale watching vessels helped the group's Whale Entanglement Team develop a strategy. They responded quickly when the whale appeared near the group's offices in Moss Landing on July 11, said Peggy Stap, the organization's founder and executive director.

"They're so committed; the captains and naturalists from all of the local companies have joined many of our introductory trainings and community events," she said. "We could not do it without them."

Whale watch vessels first spotted and photographed the entangled humpback whale in late May, trailing ropes and buoys with black and purple lines. These markings showed the gear came from the California Dungeness crab fishery, reflecting new state rules encouraged by NOAA Fisheries to make gear identification easier.

Confirmed humpback whale entanglements began increasing off the West Coast in 2014 as a series of marine heatwaves altered ocean conditions. This led to increasing whale populations to follow prey close to shore. That puts them in the same coastal waters where fishing vessels deploy their crab traps with lines to the surface.

The whale may have broken free of attached crab pots on its own. But ropes remained tightly wound around the whale's tail and flukes and had cut deeply into its body, said Dr. Julia O'Hern, a senior cetacean scientist at Marine Life Studies. That posed a life-threatening risk to the whale.

The successful response depended on collaboration with:

• Whale watching community in Monterey Bay
• Moss Landing Marine Laboratories
• Other response organizations from the West Coast Large Whale Entanglement Response Network
• California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Photos Reveal Whale's Condition

Poor weather ruled out a safe response at the time of the initial sighting in May, but whale watchers spotted the humpback again in late June. Shared photos showed it was the same whale. They identified it through an online photo database as a humpback with the nickname, " The Duchess of Anchovy ."

"They provided those photos very quickly to all of us so that we could start to track the whale," O'Hern said. "And then we were also able to assess the body condition and just the health changes that take place while these whales are entangled."

"This was a great example of collaboration both on and off the water," said Lauren Saez, who helped coordinate the response for NOAA Fisheries' West Coast Region. "The team's success led to the recovery of the gear, which our state partners traced to the Dungeness crab fishery. That will help us better understand what might have led to the entanglement in the first place."

On July 10, an early morning whale watch trip spotted the whale among several humpbacks just offshore of Moss Landing. The crew continued monitoring the whale, guiding responders aboard their vessel, R/V Current'Sea , to its location. Marine Life Studies responder Stephanie Marcos took additional photos to decipher and document the entanglement. Then, she threw a grappling hook to attach a telemetry buoy to the short lines trailing the whale.

That allowed the responders to track the whale by satellite through poor weather and quickly return to it in the fog early the next morning when the weather improved. The Current'Sea carried several experienced and highly trained responders . A team member from The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California, piloted a drone to verify the entangling ropes had not shifted during the night.

"We always want to make sure there's opportunities for other folks too, to get experience," O'Hern said. "That's how we build the pipeline for responders."

The team had conferred the night before with other entanglement experts, who agreed on a strategy for disentangling the whale. The telemetry gear was attached with a line that trailed behind the whale. Responders in a smaller boat used it to grab onto the whale so they could safely approach it from behind.

Humpback Takes Evasive Action

The whale reacted to the responder's small boat as it might try to evade predators, speeding up and diving. The team gradually attached five large floating plastic balls to the line to temporarily slow the whale down and keep it near the surface.

"We wanted to work methodically and make sure we changed things slowly for the whale so that none of us got hurt," O'Hern said. The risk to the whale and the team is why only trained and authorized responders should approach an entangled whale .

Finally, the team on the water pulled close enough to the whale to look more closely at the entanglement by putting a GoPro camera underwater. The whale had pulled them about 14 miles west of Moss Landing by this time, with the larger vessel Current'Sea following. They used a knife attached to a long pole to make three cuts at specific points in the lines.

At first, nothing happened. Disappointed, the team decided to remove the plastic poly balls and come back the next day. "As we began to move up the working line that connected us to the whale, there was a short little pop in the line and the rest of the gear slowly fell off," recalled Scott Benson, a retired NOAA Fisheries scientist and trained responder on the team.

"Disappointment turned to elation in a matter of seconds," he said.

The lines floated free of the whale, which "didn't want anything more to do with us at that point and sped away," O'Hern said. The wind was picking up, "so we finished just in time."

The gear carried a tag from the most recent 2025-26 Dungeness crab season. NOAA Fisheries is working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to interview the gear owner to learn when and where the crab gear was set. This will help understand the factors behind the entanglement. Whale watch crews meanwhile reported that the newly disentangled whale returned near Moss Landing the next day. They saw and photographed the whale feeding with other humpbacks that evening.

"They have been sending us photos documenting what the wound looks like, and what the body condition looks like, and what the behavior looks like," O'Hern said. "So in this case we will be able to follow the progress of the whale too, and hopefully get a feel for how the humpback whale is doing post-response."