North Atlantic right whales face an existential threat from fishing gear entanglement, with fewer than 360 individuals remaining and entanglement being the leading cause of human-caused mortality.
Entangled right whales endure some of the most prolonged and severe welfare suffering of any wild animal. Rope can cut through blubber and muscle over weeks and months, and whales towing heavy gear experience exhaustion, starvation, and infection. Calves entangled with their mothers face double jeopardy. Disentanglement operations by trained teams can save individual animals but are dangerous and not always possible. The most effective welfare intervention is preventing entanglement through ropeless and on-demand fishing technology, which eliminates the risk at source rather than treating individual casualties after the fact.