Entanglement in fishing ropes, nets, and crab pot lines is one of the leading causes of serious injury and death for humpback whales globally, causing prolonged suffering that can last weeks to months before disentanglement or death.
Entanglement causes profound suffering. Ropes cut into the soft tissue of fins and flukes, causing wounds that become infected over weeks to months. The drag of fishing gear causes chronic exhaustion as whales must work far harder to swim and surface to breathe. Entangled whales that survive often bear permanent disfigurement. Those that do not survive may spend weeks in increasing distress before drowning or dying of infection and starvation. The suffering involved in a typical long-term entanglement event, affecting an intelligent, socially complex mammal over days or weeks, is among the most significant per-individual welfare events in the marine environment. The solution — ropeless fishing gear — exists but adoption has been slow due to cost and regulatory inertia.