Out on your boat, you see a North American right whale entangled in fishing gear. You race into action, throwing on your survival suit and diving overboard with a knife in your teeth. The whale senses you’re there to help and waits patiently while you cut away the ropes. Just as you climb back aboard, the whale breaches and swims away in a heartwarming scene reminiscent of the movie, “Free Willy.”

Except that’s not the way it works — at all. Even if you survived your encounter with the entangled whale, chances are you wouldn’t be able to free it. And once you returned to shore after your attempt, you’d likely face prosecution.

North American right whales are protected under the Endangered Species Act; approximately 300 survive in the wild. Scars indicate some 72 percent of right whales have become ensnared in fishing gear at one point in their lives. Most entanglements are not life-threatening, but they are the second leading cause of right whale mortality.

It would be easy to assume the federal government would want anyone who sees an entangled right whale to take a stab at freeing it, but the law states that only specially-authorized individuals can attempt disentanglement. The only organization, public or private, on the East Coast federally authorized to free right whales is the Provincetown-based Center for Coastal Studies on Cape Cod, which maintains disentanglement teams up and down the coast.

But critics argue these regulations, designed to protect right whales, might be getting in the way of saving them, and in the process disenfranchise fishermen from the conservation effort.

The Canadian Model

Dr. Sean Todd, director of the College of the Atlantic’s Allied Whale program, saw a different model for working with whales as a graduate student in Newfoundland. A week after arriving, Todd was drafted into a grassroots marine animal disentanglement team.

Until recently, Canada had no equivalent regulation to the U.S. Endangered Species Act, said Todd, so fishermen often disentangled whales themselves. While he believes the Endangered Species Act remains the most important environmental legislation in the world, the absence of it in Canada made organizing grassroots quick-response teams easier. The downside was a lack of funding.

“We never had much more than an inflatable boat, an engine and a knife,” Todd said.

But when fishermen were on the frontline of the disentanglement effort, they felt a greater stake in local ecological management, Todd claimed.

“Anytime you return stewardship to the fishermen, you create a more sustainable management system,” he said.

Since coming to the U.S., Todd has helped in efforts to train fishermen as first responders for non-endangered whale entanglements.

More Harm than Good

Bob Bowman, regional coordinator for Provincetown’s Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network, said disentanglement is a highly specialized skill that requires extensive training and expensive tools; it wouldn’t be feasible to train and equip every Maine mariner.

“You don’t train every homeowner to be a firefighter,” Bowman said.

And without that training, Bowman said, would-be whale rescuers might do more harm than good. To disentangle a whale, Provincetown rescuers work on critical parts that are hardest to reach first, like the flippers and mouth. The only way to do this safely is to tire a whale out.

Borrowing a trick from whalers, Provincetown rescue teams often “keg” a whale, or attach large floats to add drag and keep the whale from diving deep under water. Once the animal is tired, rescuers can approach it and cut it free.

But kegging takes time to work and it’s rare to disentangle a whale on the first try. Provincetown rescuers often attach to the whale a buoy with a satellite and VHF tracking device, so other teams along the coast can track it and continue the disentanglement effort. Bowman said one attempted rescue spanned four months and ten thousand miles.

Bowman said it’s impossible to disentangle a right whale without risking its life in the process, so rescue teams only attempt it when the entanglement is deemed life-threatening.

Under-trained individuals attempting disentanglements can misinterpret the situation and make matters worse, Bowman said. For example, they might attempt to free a whale that isn’t in danger and start cutting away the trailing rope first, the very rope rescue teams need for attaching kegs and tracking buoys.

8,000 Potential Rescuers

Bowman said the fishing community is represented among the rescue crews, and he’s even trained the same people as Todd.

“We’re already working with professional mariners,” Bowman said.

But Steve Robbins III, until recently the fishing gear specialist for Maine’s Large Whale Conservation Program, said fishermen aren’t well-represented in response teams.

“The list is less than adequate in terms of people who know how to handle fishing gear,” Robbins said.

This seems illogical to Robbins. Provincetown rescuers are extremely busy during summer months, and can’t respond to every call quickly. Robbins said there are some 8,000 lobstermen working in Maine coastal and federal waters, all experienced in working with fishing gear and the sea.

“All those are the ones that should have just as much right or authorization [to disentangle whales],” Robbins said.

Like Todd, Robbins said if fishermen had more of a stake in the disentanglement process, they’d exercise more stewardship in the ocean. As it is, Robbins said, fishermen often under-report right whale sightings for fear of losing their fishing grounds.

A Band-Aid

While the debate over rescue effort procedures continues, both sides agree the rescue efforts themselves ultimately won’t stop the right whale’s decline in numbers or eventual extinction; only a dramatic change in fishing gear can do that.

“We’ve always looked on disentanglement as a Band-aid,” Todd said.

Bowman characterized rescue efforts as a case of animal welfare, not conservation.

“It’s a response to the animal in front of you,” Bowman said.

He said Provincetown rescue efforts are expensive and complicated, and even then the mortality rate is high. In his opinion, it would be far easier to prevent an entanglement in the first place, then to cut away the rope after the fact.