BajaNomad

Collateral damage

tehag - 12-8-2009 at 01:48 PM

Live bait fools more than just fish. This blue-footed booby was so weak he let me sit right next to him on the same rock. I was just about near enough to grab him, but he jumped off. He evidently cannot swallow, is starving, and probably not long from death.

DianaT - 12-8-2009 at 01:50 PM

That is so sad----:no:

Bajahowodd - 12-8-2009 at 02:22 PM

And then, there are some wonderful folks that work very hard to right the wrong.

From today's Maui News-

Rescuers cut free tangled whale
The Maui News and The Associated Press
POSTED: December 8, 2009


WAILUKU - In what experts called a "textbook" whale rescue, a juvenile humpback was freed of hundreds of feet of plastic rope Sunday, officials from the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary said Monday.

The U.S. Coast Guard located the whale by air Sunday morning, and a 47-foot motor lifeboat took rescuers and their Zodiac boat to its location between Molokai and Oahu, officials said.

David Schofield, the sanctuary's marine mammal stranding response coordinator, said rescuers used old whaling techniques to slow and tire the whale, enabling them to maneuver close enough to position equipment to cut the whale free.

Officials first slowed the whale by weighing it down with buoys and a sea anchor. Then they used a specially fashioned, 24-foot-long pole to position a folding knife around the rope on the whale's back.

They attached a knife to another sea anchor and waited for the weight of the anchor to pull the knife through the rope. It came free in about 10 minutes.

''There was some uncertainty, but then all of a sudden the buoys fell still and the lines kind of spread apart and started to sink,'' Schofield said. ''There was jubilation. It was a really good feeling.''

Ed Lyman, the sanctuary's marine mammal response manager, said the rope could have killed the yearling whale because it may have interfered with its feeding over time.

''We saved a whale from a life-threatening entanglement,'' he said.

Schofield said Lyman was part of a team that developed techniques for disentangling whales off the East Coast of the United States.

He said the work was started at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, and the whale was freed at 2:14 p.m.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Christopher Hyde said the whale was found by a Coast Guard helicopter crew between Molokai and Oahu, about 25 miles southeast of Honolulu.

He said he was surprised how quickly the lines fell off the whale.

Crusoe - 12-8-2009 at 04:41 PM

Thanx Odd....Nice srory. ++C++ :D

Stainless hook

tehag - 12-9-2009 at 05:23 PM

Brandt's cormorant with a stainless future.

djh - 12-10-2009 at 08:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by tehag
Live bait fools more than just fish. This blue-footed booby was so weak he let me sit right next to him on the same rock. I was just about near enough to grab him, but he jumped off. He evidently cannot swallow, is starving, and probably not long from death.



what a shame.... I hope my fellow fishy nomads will read / see this and be careful with their gear. I went to barbless / catch and release fly fishing a couple of decades ago... and then gave it up entirely. I've been planning to start substenance fishing again when we spend more time living in Loreto ~ so this is a good reminder for me. Sometimes accidents like this happen, but we can at least try to manage our gear as respondibly as possible.

bajamigo - 12-10-2009 at 08:59 AM

And then there was this sad juvenile trying to keep up with mom while wearing a pair of net buoys in his mouth. Fortunately, that was in San Ignacio lagoon, where, hopefully, one of the many environmentalists there could and did extract the device. Sad, sad.

shari - 12-10-2009 at 09:06 AM

If I may continue the highjack with another little whale story. In Ojo de Liebre, the baby whales sometimes got wrapped up in lobster trap lines. The interesting thing is that all the whales we have managed to help by cutting off ropes & floats have stopped and floated on the surface....seemingly knowing we were trying to help. They would remain still as we cut away the ropes....pretty cool eh.

I once saw a sea lion trying to bite off a rope wrapped around a baby gray's tale too!!!

bajamigo - 12-10-2009 at 09:26 AM

That's no hijack. Shari. It's exactly yhe kind of thing I was hoping would happen with this poor little guy.

Santiago - 12-10-2009 at 09:36 AM

Last year in BOLA we caught a blue foot booby trolling rebels. We slowly backed down on the booby, threw a towel over it's head and carefully holding it, removed the barbless hook. Funny thing is that as soon as it took off it dived for the other lure bobbing in the water 50 feet behind the boat - must be instinctual.

Martyman - 12-11-2009 at 10:22 AM

Santiago;
Same thing happened to us. My buddy Tahm somehow got the hook out and released it. The booby was giving him a serious stink eye and seemed to be saying " If you try anything else I will poke yer eye out with my 7" beak"