It was the first time such a method had ever been used with whales, according to those who helped develop it at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Team members on four boats, assisted by an aerial survey plane, worked for two days to free the animal off the Atlantic seaboard.

They eventually succeeded in injecting the 40-foot, 40,000-pound whale with sedatives that allowed them to cut away the gear wrapped around its head.

The new sedation delivery system uses a 12-inch needle and a syringe driven by compressed air, which injects the drug into the whale’s muscle.

An hour after injection, the animal no longer evaded approaching boats, but instead tolerated repeated close approaches by a disentanglement boat to allow removal of 90 percent of the remaining rope.

North Atlantic right whales frequently become entangled in fixed fishing gear.

Many are able to eventually disentangle themselves, but some entanglements persist for months, at times resulting in a slow and presumably very painful death.

“The typical success rate for freeing right whales from fishing gear is about 50 percent due largely in part to the difficulties in getting close enough to cut the entangling gear,” said Jamison Smith, NOAA’s East Coast project leader for whale disentanglement.

“We hope this new technique can improve the overall safety of the operations as well as improve the chances of the whales’ survival.”

Photo: Wildlife Trust