Dragging buoys and a nest of fishing lines,an adult humpback whale apparently didn’t want anything to do with a motorized boat carrying a federal rescue team intent on cutting away the snarled mess, disappearing Thursday afternoon after several hours of pursuit.
The entangled humpback was the second to be reported in as many days. Coast Guard and National Marine Fisheries Service officials were unsuccessful Wednesday in finding an enmeshed whale off West Oahu.
Thursday’s rescue attempt began at 8 a.m. when the Maui Diamond II, a dive charter boat, reported a whale was caught in fishing net from head to tail and dragging two orange buoys off South Maui.
A Coast Guard crew from Maalaea responded aboard a 45-foot vessel to relieve the Maui Diamond II. After locating the whale, officials discovered the marine mammal was not snared in nets, but fishing lines.
Coast Guard officials tried but failed to tag the whale with a radio transmitter.
The transmitter would have enabled them to find the whale if rescue efforts needed to be resumed on another day.
The boat with the federal team arrived at 2 p.m. to relieve the Coast Guard and try again to tag the whale.
Rescue team coordinator Ed Lyman said the whale avoided the team by diving and reappearing farther away.
"He was just so elusive," Lyman said.
The chase went on until a little past sunset and took the crew several miles north, near the windmills at Maalaea.
Wende Goo, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the whale wasn’t the same one seen by a couple of fishers Wednesday off West Oahu.
Goo said the whale seen Thursday was "a lot more serious" case.
In the past month there have been reports on at least three separate days of entangled whales, and federal teams have gone out along with the Coast Guard to help free them.
Officials were unable to find one reported Jan. 6 near Koko Head, or the other off West Oahu.
The NOAA whale rescue team has been trained in freeing entangled whales, using a customized knife on a long pole to cut the lines.
The Coast Guard said the humpback whale Thursday had two buoys and bundles of lines on it.
"It looked like it ran into a net," Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Martin Tremblay said.
Humpback whales are listed as endangered species under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, and winter in Hawaii from late November to mid-April. NOAA estimates about 12,000 come to Hawaii waters to breed and raise their young.
Some ocean zones in the main Hawaiian Islands, including the areas between Maui, Lanai and Kahoolawe, are a part of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.
Federal law forbids approaching within 100 yards of a humpback.
Anyone who spots an entangled whale is asked to call 888-256-9840.
