An endangered North Atlantic right whale named "Division" was spotted Wednesdaty, Dec. 3, 2025, off Jekyll Island, Georgia. Fishing lines were entangled around ihis body. | Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Published on December 8, 2025 at 4:55 pm
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An endangered North Atlantic right whale was rescued from entangled fishing lines off the coast of off St. Marys, Georgia.
Federal and state wildlife researchers hope the rest of the heavy fishing lines that had cut deeply into a fin will fall off as the 3-year-old male whale, identified as “Division,” continues his migration southward.
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Entanglement in fishing gear continues to be one of the biggest threats to critically endangered whales, with only about 380 of them remaining in the wild, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says.
With the right whale calving season just begun off the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and Northeast Florida, this is not the kind of whale sighting researchers want to see, said marine scientist Nora Ives, who works for Oceana, an international advocacy organization focused on ocean conservation.
“We should be celebrating healthy calves, not watching whales fight for their lives. Fishing rope cutting into a whale is heartbreaking and tragic,” Ives said in a statement. “Fishing gear entanglements are slow, brutal, and preventable. Swift action is needed to adopt solutions like on-demand gear and other alternatives.”
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A survey team from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission first spotted the entangled right whale on Wednesday. The same whale had first been seen in July in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with nothing wrapped around its bus-size body or its fins, officials said.
NOAA called this “a very complex entanglement” in its report.
“The whale has several lines wrapping his head and mouth, including one cutting into his blowhole,” the report said. “The line also trails beyond the flukes.”
Rescuing the right whale
A Georgia Department of Natural Resources team removed some of the commercial fishing line from around the whale that day, receiving more help from FWC and other research teams.
The rope was deeply embedded in a flipper. NOAA fisheries biologists saying it met their criteria as a “serious injury” case — meaning Division could die as a result of the entanglement.
On Thursday, teams also attached a telemetry buoy to the remaining fishing lines that could not be removed to more easily locate and track the whale. This work also allowed the teams to remove more of the entangled lines.
NOAA officials said they will continue to work with researchers to monitor the whale’s condition.
Division is the 168th whale documented in the ongoing North Atlantic right whale Unusual Mortality Event, which includes dead, seriously injured or otherwise health-compromised whales.
