The whale has been spotted struggling to free itself from a net usually used to illegally fish swordfish.
Rome:
The Italian coast guard has been working for days to free a massive sperm whale caught in an abandoned fishing net on the high seas off the Sicilian Aeolian Islands.
The whale was spotted on Saturday, struggling to free itself from a net usually used to illegally fish swordfish.
The coast guard said in a statement that operations were hampered by the large size of the whale, which had become very agitated.
Due to his energetic efforts to free himself, the whale was given the name “Fury”.
It is the second time in less than a month that the Italian coast guard has had to intervene to free a sperm whale tangled in a fishing net.
“These damned fishing nets are doing a lot of damage. I haven’t slept in 36 hours … the divers managed to remove part of the net, but it started moving and it became too dangerous”, explained biologist Monica Blasi to La Repubblica.
Blasi said that they attached a light to Fury’s tail so as not to lose sight of it as they attempted to remove the rest of the net.
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