mission in Mexico! Welcome to Jonathan Birds Blue World! Humpback whales are among the largest animals
on Earth. They roam all the oceans, making massive migrations
between warm, tropical water where they give birth to their young, and colder waters where
they feed on more abundant food like small fish and krill. But while the Humpback is a mighty creature,
it is not invincible. Humpbacks are regularly injured and killed
due to human causes such as pollution, ship strikes and the most deadly: fishing gear
entanglement.
Its September, 2017. The Blue World team is boarding the live-aboard
dive boat Sea Escape in Ensenada, Mexico for an adventure filming Great White sharks at
Guadalupe Island, 150 miles offshore. We depart and begin a 12 hour run to the island. Within a few hours, divers Kitty Edwards and
Jamie Mathison have spotted something unusual.
So we were up on the top deck talking about
marine debris and ocean conservation, and looking for whales. And all the sudden I look out and I see an
orange buoy. I saw a splash around it and some gray, it
looked like it could have been a whale. Told the rest of the group and we looked out
at it for a minute, and low and behold it actually was a whale that was entangled in
some marine debris.
To get a closer look, I run to the top deck
with my camera. Zooming in, I can clearly see a whale pulling
a buoy. Looks like he is dragging a longline or something
with a buoy and theres a bunch of kelp on it. Has he come up to breathe? Yeah.
To get a better view of the situation, we
launch our drone. Dont lose it, dont lose it! From a high vantage point, we can see that
the whale is dragging a lot of rope, two buoys and a bunch of kelp that has been snared on
the buoy. There is no way this whale will be able to
feed dragging this much stuff. It will surely die a slow death of starvation.
Our divemaster Benjamin Fernandez Olivari
has a daring plan. He calls another nearby dive boat, the Solmar
V, for assistance, and they send over some of their crew in a small fast boat, called
a panga. They pick up Benjamin and two other crew members,
and set out for the whale. When they get close, Benjamin jumps into the
water with a knife to cut the rope.
The whale doesnt understand what is happening
and speeds up. Things are quickly getting dangerous. It was a little bit scary man to be honest
with you because at first I started climbing on the line and she got scared, she started
pulling on me. Like a Nantucket Sleigh Ride from the whaling
days, Benjamin is hanging on while the whale pulls him through the water.
I was holding on to the line of the buoy and
as the whale pulls forward, what happens is that you get taken underneath the surface. So I really couldnt breathe many times,
so I said OK, now I have to pull down the line and go all the way down to cut it because
if I just hold on to this, whats going to happen is that Im not going to be able
to breathe. So if I cant breathe Ill have to let
go. So I rode it for a while like that until I
noticed that there was nothing I could do because her tail was right underneath me.
So I didnt want to be in the way of the
tail if she got scared. This is dangerous. She dragged me for a while until I noticed
that she was not going to stop and I was not going to reach the place I had to, so I let
it go. We just decided to follow the whale side by
side with the panga for a while so we could see if she was going to let us do it, if she
was not going to let us do it, see whats what, you know? When you are in the water with an animal that
size, in a panga, with a bunch of people, you need to be careful, you know, we dont
want to hurt anybody.
The fact of the matter is that people have
been killed attempting to rescue whales from entanglement. These animals are huge and powerful, and do
not always understand what is happening. But in spite of the danger and frustration,
the team tries again. And soon, they succeed in cutting the rope,
freeing the whale from the buoys and kelp slowing it down.
Ive seen this on-line a million times. And I always think, what would I do if I got
caught in a situation like that? You never know man, because everybody always
says oh I would have done that, I wouldnt have done this and you never know what
you are going to do until you get put into a situation like that, in a limit situation. So, gladly everything went well man, and we
reacted the way we were supposed to. With the whale safe and free, the crew of
the Solmar V return to their boat as heroes.
And this marine debris will never endanger
another whale. Were a few hours late arriving at Guadalupe
to dive with the sharks, but everyone on our boat agrees that it was for a great cause,
saving the life of a Humpback whale..
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