“It was a real rat’s nest of gill netting, floats and lines wrapped tightly to the [tail and fluke],” Cottrell said in an interview. “So to see it finally swim away free … it was a great feeling.”
The whale was initially reported Thursday to DFO’s hotline by recreational fishers in Esperanza Inlet in Nootka Sound. Cottrell’s team was able to arrive quickly and remove some of the fishing gear and attach a satellite tag to the rest of it before the whale swam into open ocean as darkness fell.
On Saturday, the whale was picked up on satellite tracking near shore off Brooks Peninsula