||| FROM GLOBAL NEWS |||
Conservationists say heartbreaking images of a humpback whale with a severed tail on B.C.’s coast should serve as a wake-up call.
The whale was spotted twice earlier this month, once near Klemtu and once near Greenpoint Rapids, north of Campbell River.
Campbell River Whale Watching co-founder Tyler Bruce said a group was on the water on July 10 when they saw the whale struggling to swim against the current.
“A pretty significant part of the whale was missing. It was quite a shock.”
Bruce forwarded images of the injured whale to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), where officials offered a grim prognosis.
“It was tragic, it was horrific…. I was frankly really surprised the animal was still alive,” Paul Cottrell with DFO Marine Mammal Rescue said.
Cottrell said without its tail fluke, the whale’s ability to move and forage is significantly compromised.
How anyone can read this article and not weep is beyond me. This is just one of the examples of the needless suffering and slaughter that anthropocentrism causes other living, sentient beings.
Why isn’t there more call to find and remove lost fishing gear from harm’s way? What is being done to curb or ban the kind of fishing that causes these cruel deaths?
More news about this poor whale, sighted near Lopez. https://www.sanjuanjournal.com/news/net-entangled-humpback-sighted-off-lopez/
I cannot even imagine the pain this whale must be in.
If the sight of this whale, who is more than likely starving to death, don’t get people to make change, I don’t know what will. Probably nothing will.