Wildlife officials are scrambling to mount a second rescue attempt after a humpback whale trapped in heavy commercial fishing gear was spotted struggling off the Southern California coast last Thursday.
The distressed animal was first observed around the Palos Verdes area by passengers aboard a Harbor Breeze whale-watching excursion out of Long Beach. The tour operator posted video from the 12:00 p.m. Outing that showed the net wrapped tightly around the middle of the whale’s body, restricting movement of its pectoral fins.
“Today on our 12:00pm Whale Watch we witnessed a struggling Humpback Whale that was entangled in fishing nets off Point Fermin,” Harbor Breeze captioned in the footage shared online.
The operator added a stark warning about the severity of the situation: “Because of this entanglement, this whale is not able to move freely, cannot feed, and can even have trouble getting to the surface to breathe. While all littering in the ocean is dangerous, Commercial fishing gear is absolutely one of the most common occurrences for killing marine life.”
A NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center biologist, Sarah Mesnick, described how conditions thwarted an initial intervention when specialists reached the scene. “The team made multiple attempts to reach the trailing gear, but the whale’s behavior and water and weather conditions hampered their efforts,” she told KTLA. “They also attempted to put on a satellite tracking tag, but similarly, conditions hampered their efforts.”
The unsuccessful rescue leaves the whale’s whereabouts uncertain and complicates plans for another try.
Tracking data reveals the animal has been migrating south along the California coast for weeks. Before Thursday’s sighting near Point Fermin, the same whale was photographed without any entanglement off Humboldt County on August 22, then spotted again near San Luis Obispo on September 20. The gap between the San Luis Obispo and Palos Verdes sightings suggests the whale became trapped somewhere in the intervening stretch of coastline.
The case lands amid troubling federal statistics on whale entanglements nationwide. A NOAA report documented 76 confirmed cases of large whales caught in gear along U.S. Coasts in 2025, with humpbacks accounting for 65 of those incidents. California led all 11 reporting states with 27.6 percent of the total, while Alaska followed at 23.7 percent.
Marine mammal specialists emphasize that speed matters in entanglement cases. Trapped whales face starvation, drowning, and exhaustion as the gear drags through the water or snags on the seafloor. The restriction of pectoral fin movement seen in Thursday’s footage is particularly dangerous, as it limits the whale’s ability to maneuver, hunt, and surface efficiently.
Harbor Breeze operates whale-watching and ocean excursion tours from multiple Southern California ports including Long Beach, San Pedro, and Santa Monica. The company has not indicated whether its vessels have encountered the entangled whale again since Thursday’s sighting.
NOMA urges anyone who spots the whale or another entangled marine mammal to call its hotline at 877-SOS-WHALE or 877-767-9425 immediately. Trained responders can deploy specialized cutting equipment, but success depends heavily on sea conditions, the whale’s cooperation, and how quickly teams can reach the animal.