One of the many threats facing cetaceans is entanglement in fishing equipment. Above, Conscious Breath Adventures staff member Capt. Jeff Pantukhoff, founder and president of The WhaleMan Foundation, holds more than 100' of nylon line recovered from an entangled humpback whale calf on the Silver Bank during the 2009 season. This was less than half of the total entanglement, which included two wire fish traps and hundreds of feet of line.
Unfortunately, after this initial success, attempts all afternoon to remove the remaining line and traps failed, and contact with the still-entangled calf was lost as darkness fell. The calf was not seen again on subsequent days, and entangled as it was, its chances for survival were slim. (Photo © Jodi Frediani, used with permission)
The Cetacean Situation
Welcome to The Cetacean Situation. Part of Conscious Breath Adventures' philosophy is through education to help raise awareness of environmental issues that affect Cetaceans: whales, dolphins, and porpoises. The Cetacean Situation is our platform for presenting and discussing those issues. Some issues discussed are specific to Cetaceans. However many affect not only whales, dolphins and porpoises, but all other life in the oceans and even on land as well. By focusing on Cetaceans we hope to foster an environmental awareness and corresponding conservation ethic and behavior in our readers that will help the whales directly, and as a consequence, all other life as well.
The Cetacean Situation is updated regularly, with different subjects discussed in each issue. Subscribers to Whale eMail receive an abridged discussion of the subject in that newsletter, with the full treatment on the subject posted here on The Cetacean Situation. Please subscribe to Whale eMail for updates and visit this page for complete details as they are posted.
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