330 Pounds of Fishing Gear Kills Undernourished Whale in Canada

An underweight and undernourished whale washes up on a beach in Canada where it passed away during the night from starvation brought on by the 330 pounds of fishing gear in its stomach.

On November 9, the sperm whale was still alive when it washed up on Cape Breton Island. When teams from the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative-Atlantic Veterinary College, and the Marine Animal Response Society (MARS) arrived on the scene, they discovered the whale to be incredibly underweight. It passed away overnight, according to a statement on Facebook by MARS.

The animal slowly starved to death because of the 330 pounds of fishing equipment that was discovered during a necropsy on the carcass.

Sperm Whales

According to NOAA Fisheries, sperm whales inhabit all deep oceans on the planet. Due to their vulnerability, they are subject to a variety of dangers, such as injury or entanglement in fishing gear and noise pollution.

There are many reasons why marine mammals wash up on shore. They are frequently discovered severely injured or ill, which prevents them from having the strength to swim away from the shore.

Tonya Wimmer, the Executive Director of MARS, said that For marine life all over the world, ingesting debris from the oceans, such as plastic and fishing line, is a serious problem. Numerous other species' demises have also been investigated and linked to the consumption of debris. There have been animals in the Canadian Maritime Provinces with plastic and other debris discovered in their stomachs in the past, but nothing to this extent.

It's unclear how much the washed-up sperm whale in Canada weighed; although they typically weigh about 90,000 pounds. The stomach of the species is roughly 4 feet long and 3 feet wide.

The Threat of Fishing Gear

Teams are still unsure as to whether the fishing equipment originated in Canada or another nation. Furthermore, it is unclear when or where the equipment was consumed.

Wimmer said that many species of animals are known to be at risk from ingesting fishing gear as well as from becoming entangled in it externally. Entanglements in fishing equipment pose a serious problem for the recovery of some critically endangered species.

The use of fishing gear puts marine life at serious risk of harm or ingestion. It can occasionally entangle itself around the bodies of whales, preventing them from effectively feeding or swimming. According to a 2021 study by the University of St. Andrews, Fife, an estimated 300,000 whales, dolphins, and porpoises per year worldwide pass away after being hurt by fishing gear.

Certain Death

Snow Cone, a North Atlantic right whale, gained notoriety after becoming tangled in copious amounts of fishing line. When she was last seen in September, scientists concluded that she was almost certainly dead.

Wimmer said that cleaning up the trash that is currently present in the environment, both on land and in the ocean, is one action that can be taken. This problem has been the focus of numerous "ghost gear" and shoreline cleanup campaigns around the globe because it poses a serious threat to the survival of marine life and humans. After all, humans consume marine mammals.

Several great white sharks that were discovered washed ashore off the coast of Nova Scotia were recently removed by MARS. Shark strandings are uncommon compared to marine mammals, Newsweek reports.