03-24-2004, 09:07 PM
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - A team of scientists left aboard a U.S. Coast Guard (news - web sites) cutter on Wednesday to catch up with an endangered right whale entangled in a web of fishing gear and buoys.
The cutter Yellowfin left from Georgetown with a crew of 10 and about 15 scientists, including researchers from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Mass.
An airplane from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was being used to try to locate the whale, somewhere off Myrtle Beach, said Laura Engleby, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
"It's a severely entangled whale. It's a very difficult situation," she said.
Scientists say that unless the whale, one of only an estimated 350 North Atlantic right whales, is freed, it will die. The ropes will tighten around it as it grows.
The 10-metre yearling whale was first found entangled off the coast of Florida last week.
Scientists tried to disentangle him on Friday, but the job was so complex that they decided to return this week and, perhaps, use a sedative in an attempt to calm the creature so it can be freed. Scientists said it could take several days to free the whale.
In 1991, researchers tried to rescue a right whale tangled in rope at a cost of more than $250,000 but failed to save it. A female right whale became ensnared in fishing line off Canada in 2002, and was spotted again off Cape Cod last March, still entangled.
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The cutter Yellowfin left from Georgetown with a crew of 10 and about 15 scientists, including researchers from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Mass.
An airplane from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was being used to try to locate the whale, somewhere off Myrtle Beach, said Laura Engleby, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
"It's a severely entangled whale. It's a very difficult situation," she said.
Scientists say that unless the whale, one of only an estimated 350 North Atlantic right whales, is freed, it will die. The ropes will tighten around it as it grows.
The 10-metre yearling whale was first found entangled off the coast of Florida last week.
Scientists tried to disentangle him on Friday, but the job was so complex that they decided to return this week and, perhaps, use a sedative in an attempt to calm the creature so it can be freed. Scientists said it could take several days to free the whale.
In 1991, researchers tried to rescue a right whale tangled in rope at a cost of more than $250,000 but failed to save it. A female right whale became ensnared in fishing line off Canada in 2002, and was spotted again off Cape Cod last March, still entangled.
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