Critically Endangered North Atlantic Right Whale Succumbs To Entanglement Wounds
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WASHINGTON, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/
After over 4 months of suffering severe entanglement in heavy fishing gear, an 11-year old male North Atlantic right whale nicknamed
Cottontail by researchers has died off the coast of South Carolina.
Since October, disentanglement attempts were made by both the Center for Coastal Studies and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Unsuccessful due largely to weather conditions, Cottontail s chances of survival remained grim. These whales must maneuver through an industrialized waterway dense with intense shipping traffic and an estimated one million commercial vertical fishing lines in the water column. This journey to their feeding grounds, which the species has taken for centuries, is becoming a journey of no return, said Brian Sharp, IFAW s Director of Marine Mammal Rescue & Research.