BAR HARBOR — The head of a whale-watching boat says a 40-foot-long humpback whale that got caught up in fishing gear off Mount Desert Island has been freed.
The whale, known as Spinnaker in the whale-watching community, was spotted Friday by a Bar Harbor Whale Watch boat. Lead guide Zack Klyver told the Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/1qUCFhT ) that a rescue team was able to cut away a lot of gear that night, but the whale’s tail remained entangled. Rescue workers rigged up buoys to take the weight of the nets off the animal, and returned Saturday to cut away line that was wrapped around the whale’s tail 30 times. The whale swam away quickly once that happened around 5 p.m.
The rescue team included several state and federal agencies.
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