Southern Right Whale freed after being tangled in a cray pot line

A Southern Right Whale was freed on Tuesday afternoon after being tangled in a cray pot line for at least four days.

A fisherman reported the stuck whale on Saturday, and stayed with the whale until experts were able to form a plan to extricate the whale from the rope, said Jennifer Ross from the Department of Conservation's (DOC) Stewart Island team.

Ross said the rope had tangled around the whale's tail, "and it was effectively anchored to the ground there and wasn't able to move too far".

A DOC team checked the whale's breathing and sent videos to whale experts, she said.

"In terms of whale entanglements, it wasn't too stressed.

"It was doing a few rolls, but it had good breathing and it could be safe enough in that space."

Because Southern Right Whales have "huge pectoral fins and they can turn 180 degrees very quickly and very easily", Ross said any attempt to free it would be dangerous, Ross said.

On Monday, a whale expert attached a satellite tag to the young male, and on Monday night, it broke free from the site where it was tethered.

On Tuesday, a group of whale disentanglement experts arrived on a ferry which took the experts, as well as ferry passengers, to look for the whale.

Ross said they found it in a different location.

After it was released, the whale swam off, she said.

The sub-adult whale was nine metres long, while a full-sized Southern Right Whale is about 15m long, she said.

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