BOSTON (WHDH) - Crews were able to free a humpback whale that got tangled in fishing gear in the water off Boston earlier this week.
A team from the Center for Coastal Studies found the whale with a heavy line lodged in its mouth near the southern end of Stellwagen Bank on Monday afternoon, officials said in a news release.
Due to poor sea conditions, the team attached a tracking buoy to the entanglement before heading back to land.
The whale then traveled 25 miles north to the waters outside Boston Harbor and dragged the entanglement into even more fishing gear.
A second rescue attempt ultimately proved successful and the whale swam away at a high speed, officials added.
“Based on her relatively poor body condition it appears that she had been entangled for weeks or months, so it’s likely that the entangling gear was picked up somewhere on her migration north from the humpback mating and calving grounds in the West Indies,” the Center for Coastal Studies said in a news release.
The whale’s prognosis is now said to be good.
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