By GARRET JAROS / Lincoln Chronicle
YACHATS – A live juvenile humpback whale tangled in lines from a crab pot washed ashore north of Yachats Saturday afternoon but whale experts said Sunday there was little chance of it surviving.
The approximately 25-foot cetacean rolled in the surf attracting local beachgoers to try to push it back into the ocean. They managed to cut nearly all of a tangled line from the whale Saturday evening and worked unsuccessfully through the night to push the whale out to sea against incoming crashing surf.
Yachats resident Tracy Crews, a marine biologist and the associate director of education with Oregon State University’s Sea Grant program, went to the scene after being called by locals. She and a colleague inspected the lines removed from the whale and took them to the Marine Mammal Institute at Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.
Crews told the Lincoln Chronicle on Saturday night it was obvious the line had not been in the water long as there was no buildup of plankton or other creatures that normally accumulate on crab pot lines that have been long in the ocean.
“It has been very scary,” said Crews, who returned to the stranding two miles north of Yachats after first light Sunday. “You probably saw the videos. They were in the water trying to push the whale as the waves were coming in, super scary, because the whale could have rolled over and pinned them. And they were doing it in the dark.”
According to NOAA Fisheries it is illegal to approach a stranded whale in Oregon because marine mammals are protected by the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, which prohibits harassment of any kind. Although it was well-meaning people concerned with the whale’s survival, experts recommend staying back 100 yards.
Approaching a stranded whale can cause undue stress when it is already in an exhausted state. Experts say not to make noise, pour water over the whale or dig trenches, which can lead to the sand shifting below the animal and injuring it internally.
“People obviously want to help,” Crews said. “The best thing you can do is report animals that are entangled as soon as you notice them, especially if they are out to sea. They do have special teams that can go out and help disentangle whales.”
Crews added that people can help by supporting research occurring through the Marine Mammal Institute regarding whale entanglement and potentially volunteer for the Marine Mammal Stranding Network.
Crews said the recovered line did have tags identifying where it came from and that it was from crab pots set in Oregon. She declined to go into detail but said there would be internal discussions about the source.
“It’s not up to us to reveal that,” she said. “As you know there’s been a lot of collaboration between the crab industry and researchers to try to address exactly this issue. And they are working on it.”
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in conjunction with local fisherman began last weekend to place crab pots to determine the current meat content of Dungeness crab as well as whether they have elevated levels of domoic acid. The tests will take place over the next several weeks in preparation for a possible Dec. 1 opening of the ocean commercial Dungeness crab season.
Onlookers told to stay away
People from the stranding network arrived about 9:30 a.m. Sunday and placed yellow tape and orange flags in the sand to cordon the whale off from onlookers who numbered more than 100 by then. People had been standing close by the whale, some waving and shouting encouragement to it as larger waves rolled in and over it.
High tide was at 9:30 a.m. but it seemed to do little good for the whale, who continued to blow from its hole and move its tail and pectoral fins on occasion.
Marine mammal experts who arrived shortly before that did not hold out much hope for the whale’s survival.
“Once it’s here on the beach like this it’s done,” said Robert Pitman, an institute scientist. “It came to shore to die and we can’t save it but we can learn from it. It’s important to find out what happened here. It was in a very weakened conditioned to get here. It wasn’t like it made a bad turn somewhere.”
Pitman’s colleague, Lisa Ballance, interim director of the Marine Mammal Institute, said it is a “rough situation” and “heartbreaking.”
“Right now, people are here because they care about this individual animal’s welfare and these kinds of events are truly heartbreaking,” Ballance said. “It’s hard to witness. In truth, once a whale comes to shore, there’s a super, super slim, almost no chance that it’s going to survive. There’s a reason it comes to shore. I was curious about the extent of the entanglement which might indicate what shape it was in when it came ashore.”
If the whale does die, Ballance said, scientists will perform a necropsy, taking samples of the animal and try to determine a cause of death.
Pitman said the humpback whale is very small and estimated it to be a yearling that has likely already separated from its mother. Humpback calves stay with their mothers, drinking a viscous milk mothers squirt into the ocean for the first 11 months of their lives.
“But it’s hard to say,” he said. “It’s kind of at that awkward in between stage. But it’s not emaciated. I’m not sure how much the entanglement would have contributed to it being on the beach here. It’s hard to say. You can see them swimming in a lot worse shape as far as entanglement stuff – scars and wrapped up. I saw the footage on the web and it didn’t look too badly tangled at all.”
Pitman said there was no obvious trauma and that it looks like a healthy humpback, adding it might be diseased or something. Institute staff will conduct a necropsy once the whale dies to try to make a determination.
Earlier this month a dead young humpback washed ashore near Neskowin. A marine biologist in Depoe Bay said she believed the whale likely died from starvation.
- To report a distressed marine mammal contact NOAA’s West Coast Region Stranding Hotline at 1-866-767-6114 or the Marine Mammal Standing Network at 541-867-0202.
- Garret Jaros covers the communities of Yachats, Waldport, south Lincoln County and natural resources issues and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
