Ongoing search for entangled right whale in Bay of Fundy is unprecedented, says expert

The ongoing search for an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Bay of Fundy is unprecedented, according to a whale expert.

Rescue crews continued to search by air and on the water Thursday for the 10-year-old male, first spotted Monday, east of Grand MananIsland, dragging an orange buoy.

Jerry Conway, who has been involved in whale disentanglement for four decades, says he's never seen this amount of effort and resources go into finding an entangled whale before, "with the exception of some of the work that was done in the Gulf of St. Lawrence last year."

"Iwould say in the Bay of Fundy, this is the largest effort I have witnessed," said Conway,an adviser with the Canadian Whale Institute and a member of theCampobelloWhale Rescue Team, who previouslyserved as the marine mammal adviser with The Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and was responsible for organizing such searches.

"I'm very pleased."

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North Atlantic right whales are an endangered species.There are only an estimated 450 of them left in the world. Of those, only about 100 are breeding females and no calves were born this year.

The entangled whale, identified as No. 3843, is of the breeding age andimportant to the species' survival, said Conway.

But if rescue crews aren't able to find him soon, he may only survive a few months,according toScott Landry,director of the Marine Animal Entanglement Response program at theCenterfor Coastal Studies inProvincetown,Mass.

He said the whale's condition has deteriorated quickly between June, when he was photographed gear-free in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Monday's sighting.

'Needle in a haystack'

A Department ofFisheries plane, a Canadian Coast Guard inshore patrol vessel and the Campobellorescue boat searched for several hours onThursday, said Conway.

About a dozen whale watching companies on both sides of the bay and fishermen in the area were also on the look-out.

"So we've got all kinds of eyes out there looking for the whale but unfortunately no one has sighted it," he said. "It's extremely frustrating."

North Atlantic right whales can travel about 30 square kilometres within five minutes so the entangled whale could be a long distance from where it was first spotted, possibly as far as the Gulf of Maine.

"Like the old saying, [it's like]looking for a needle in a haystack," he said.

The search is expected to continue over the long weekend, weather permitting, said Fisheries and Oceans spokesperson Stephen Bornais.

Conway commended the federal department for its "tremendous amount ofeffort."

Since January 2017, there have been at least 18 North Atlantic right whaledeathsin U.S. and Canadian waters 12 off the Canadian coast.