Tag Archives: Whale-watchers

Catch and Release: Humpback snared in a fishing net

A group of 85 whale watchers witnessed humpback whale “Owl” thrash for 50 minutes while caught in a fishing net Thursday afternoon off the Isle of Shoals, said Peter Reynolds who led the tour. Jen Kennedy, executive director of the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation, said the fishing net was deployed off the purse-seiner” vessel “Western Wave” and the net “completely encompassed the 32 year-old humpback.,, A Coast Guard spokesman said a Coast Guard boat patrolling at the time, about 2:15 pm Thursday, responded to the incident, took about 40 minutes to get there and by the time it did, the fishing net had been lowered and Owl was freed. >click to read<15:13

Whale-watchers ask why herring fishery carries on where right whales sighted

A whale-watching tour operator and one of her customers say they are concerned nothing was done to stop herring seiners after two North Atlantic right whales were spotted in the Bay of Fundy off Brier Island, N.S. ,,”My big concern is the herring fishery,” Blackman said. “The seiners have been moving in every night. The last three nights they have been right in the place we spotted the whale this afternoon. Right in the opening between Brier Island and Long Island. “We’re watching the herring seiners come in, and they set up with these huge nets which are endangering the whale.” >click to read<09:51