'Anchored' Gray Whale Rescued From Net Off Palos Verdes Peninsula

PALOS VERDES, CA — A gray whale was rescued off the Palos Verdes Coast recently after getting entangled in a fishing net, according to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration.

Whale watchers reported seeing the trapped whale the evening of Tuesday, April 8, according to NOAA. The agency then put together a trained team to help free the whale the following day.

“The whale was anchored in place because of the trap about 100 feet down on the sea floor and was having difficulty coming to the surface to breathe,” Justin Greenman, assistant California stranding coordinator for NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region, said in a statement Wednesday.

NOAA officials said it took nearly two hours to remove the gillnet, which is designed to have fish swim into the net and trap them headfirst by their gills.

Once freed, the whale quickly swam away, according to NOAA officials.

“It wasn’t going anywhere because of the way the net was caught,” Justin Viezbicke, California stranding coordinator for NOAA Fisheries, said in a statement. “Without our response, the chances of this whale surviving were very low.”

The rescue comes as experts have seen a concerning number of North Pacific Gray whales dying this year.

Following an unusual mortality event between 2018 and 2023, the gray whales appeared to be recovering.

But at least 80 whales have died this year in Mexico as of April 12, according to experts. Three more whales recently died during a northbound migration near the San Francisco Bay. A dead gray whale also washed up on the shore of Huntington Beach on April 11.

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Researchers in California have also seen a record-low number of gray whales migrating this year.

“Our whale counts are very low,” marine biologist Alisa Schulman-Janiger told Patch last week. “We didn’t have a single southbound calf. That’s never happened in 41 seasons.”

Gray whales make one of the longest migrations of any mammal, traveling around 12,000 miles round-trip between summer feeding grounds in the Arctic and the warmer waters of Mexico, where they breed and nurse their calves.

It's uncertain for sure why the whales are dying, but experts have pointed to a lack of food as a factor.

Field Editor Kristina Houck contributed to this report.