Gray whale calf fights for life in local waters
A young gray whale is struggling to survive off the coast of Marina del Rey after local rescuers removed a 10-foot line that was tightly tied to the whale’s fluke on Sept. 7. Peter Wallerstein from Marine Animal Rescue and members of Baywatch originally came upon the lethargic young whale off the coast of Manhattan Beach and attempted to free the animal from the inhibiting entanglement that could well have been picked up in the breeding grounds of Mexico. “When MAR arrived in our Zodiac, we observed a 20-foot gray whale with rope line tightly wrapped around its tail,” said Wallerstein. “The small whale was trailing about 10 feet of line on either side of it. We wasted no time and began our approach to attempt to free the whale.” Wallerstein and company, who are trained to handle such circumstances, preformed the rescue from the MAR Zodiac by grabbing hold of the line and using it to bring them close to the whale’s tale. The longtime marine mammal rescuer said their main intention was to cut the line away from the animal so it had a fighting chance at survival. “The main thing we wanted to do was at least relieve it from the life threatening problem of the entanglement which was tightly embedded in the fluke area,” Wallerstein said. The rescue itself was no light-hearted fun-in-the-sun event. Wallerstein...
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