Local boaters help save entangled humpback whale near Rockport

The timely rescue of an entangled humpback whale off the coast of Rockport on Saturday has a happy ending, and two local boaters can take partial credit.

Alan Grazioso and Patricia Alvarado Núñez, an executive producer at GBH, spend their summer weekends in their 17-foot Boston Whaler exploring the waters off Cape Ann, generally taking photos of lighthouses and seals. Saturday's beautiful weather prompted them to head out further offshore where they hoped to catch a glimpse of some whales that had been spotted there the previous week.

Grazioso said they saw three whales and watched them for nearly an hour. Then they heard strange sounds a short distance away.

"We heard an odd groaning noise and then we saw splashing," Grazioso said. "We kept our distance because the regulation minimum is 300 feet, but we could see some lines wrapped around a whale's tail. She was trying to move her fins and was breathing with a groan and really in distress. It was heartbreaking to hear the groan, like a deep groan, like asking for help."

Video by Alan Catello Grazioso

Grazioso and Alvarado Núñez immediately called the Rockport police, who referred them to the hotline at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, which conducts research on marine mammals in the western North Atlantic.

A team from the Center for Coastal Studies was already out on the water for a research cruise, and they were able to quickly pivot and reach the distressed whale.

"Once we got up there, we found a humpback whale that's very well known to us, a 33-year-old female named Pinball," said Scott Landry, director of the center's marine animal entanglement response program. This year she's a mother. Her entanglement certainly was not the worst, but it was just made more complicated by the fact that she had her 8-month-old calf with her. That being said, it worked out really well."

Landry said Pinball had debris caught on her tail and in her mouth. Rescue crews in inflatable boats used buoys to slow down the whale, then used hook-shaped knives at the end of very long poles to cut the line.

Alvarado Núñez says they were able to watch most of the disentanglement process from a distance until the winds picked up and they decided to return to shore. She says it's an experience she'll never forget.

"It was very emotional. We both kind of held hands," she recalled. "I'm getting emotional now because it was not one whale, but two whales, because a baby was there. We just hope that they are safe, wherever they are."

Landry says the prognosis for Pinball and her calf are good.

"You know, obviously, she was in a very difficult position, struggling with something that was driving her into an absolute panic. At the same time, like any mother, she also has to keep herself together to try to take care of her kid. So trying to manage two of those very complicated things at once was really difficult for her. But, you know, removing that gear from her, watching her get back with her calf gives us hope."

Landry says if they can get to the whale before sunset they are successful in about 90% of humpback whale entanglements and 50% of right whale cases.

He also says Grazioso and Alvarado Núñez did everything right.

"They called immediately once they realized something was wrong. And had they not done that, had they gone back home and they'd had second thoughts and thought, 'Well, why don't we give someone a call now?' We wouldn't have been able to do what we did for Pinball."