The state Department of Marine Resources says it has dealt with three separate, large whale entanglements off the coast of Maine in the past month. Only one of the whales was successfully disentangled.
In a statement, a DMR spokesperson said that in late July an entangled humpback whale was spotted by ferry passengers in Penobscot Bay. The Maine Marine Patrol, which is part of the regional disentanglement network, could not locate it and suspended their search.
Then on August 6th, an entangled fin whale was observed south of Vinalhaven during a routine aerial survey conducted by the state's marine mammal division. That whale could also not be found.
However, on August 12, the Maine Marine Patrol successfully disentangled a humpback that was first reported by a whale watching company two days earlier swimming southeast of Bar Harbor.
Whales are known to travel long distances. And as a spokesperson for NOAA wrote in a statement, "just because the entangled whale was sighted off the coast of Maine it does not mean the whale was necessarily entangled in Maine gear."
According to DMR, gear that was removed from the humpback will be transferred to NOAA's Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office for further evaluation.