With more humpback whales in B.C. waters, entanglements are on the rise, too
CBC
It takes a village to disentangle a humpback whale — or, in the case of a mother and her calf off the coast of Vancouver Island last week, a community of whale watchers, researchers, Mounties, Parks Canada staff and a team of highly skilled professionals from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).
These operations are becoming much more common in B.C. waters as the numbers of humpbacks — and people on the water spotting whales in distress — increase.
"There are so many eyes and ears out there," said Paul Cottrell with marine mammal rescue at DFO and a global expert on whale disentanglement.
The whale and her calf were first spotted entangled in fishing gear on Oct. 7 near Barkley Sound off Ucluelet by Sydney Dixon, research director for the Tofino-based Strawberry Isle Marine Research Society.
"This is a female humpback whale that is really well known and beloved in Barkley Sound," said Dixon, who is also a Zodiac skipper for Jamie's Whaling Station, a tour operator on the west coast of the Island.
The whale, known as Pinky to locals, has migrated to the waters off Barkley Sound fairly consistently since the early 2000s, says Dixon.
"She's brought several babies back to our area to our area as well," she said.
Dixon said she was conducting a whale-watching tour when she noticed floats from what appeared to be a crab or prawn trap following behind the pair.
"I realized that either she or her calf were entangled in some fishing gear," she said.
Entanglements have become more common over the past decade, says Cottrell.
"In the last five years, we've seen an uptick from three to 10 confirmed entanglements to ...10 to 25 animals a year entangled," he said.
Part of the reason, he says, is because there are a lot more humpback whales in inshore waters. For example, the humpback whale population off northeastern Vancouver Island reached 86 in 2018, up from just seven in 2004.
"Getting these animals back is a great news story, but there are more entanglements because we do have [fishing] gear in the water," he said.
The effects of entanglement on whales depends on how much and what type of gear is involved, and where on the body it is.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.