Officials had quite the task removing 280 feet of fishing line rope, used for public use, from a 4-year-old right whale along Georgia waters Sunday and Monday.
The whale species still has 20 feet of the rope inside it, which officials believe it will be able to remove it on its own the Associated Press reported Thursday.
"We feel like what we did gives the whale a fighting chance to shed the remainder of the rope on its own," Clay George a marine biologist for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources told the AP who estimated the whale is still dragging about 20 feet of the rope woven with lead weights. "The real take-home message here is we can't just go out and save and fix every whale that shows up entangled. In some cases it's just completely impossible to disentangle that whale," George told the AP.
Members of the Navy examining the ground from the sky discovered the whale with with the string by Jacksonville, Fla, and wildlife workers subsequently came to the whale, and got rid of a portion of the rope, while also attaching buoy so workers could keep tabs on it.
The whale was 40 miles out from the shores of Darien, Ga Monday when Florida wildlife officials came to the scene via a boat to remove more of the rope.
Georgia and other colleagues removed three quarters of fishing line from a 30-foot whale in 2011 with a grappling hook or one with many prongs the AP reported.
The two instances are examples of a danger in the commercial fishing industry taking into account that ships travelling on East Coast waters can pose trouble for right whales lives.
Four hundred and fifty right whales, who head towards hotter climates in Georgia and Florida during the winter time to go into labor their children still exist the AP reported.
