Fatally entangled right whales can die extremely slowly

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Date
2006-09
Author
Moore, Michael J. 
Bogomolni, Andrea L. 
Bowman, Robert 
Hamilton, Philip K. 
Harry, Charles T. 
Knowlton, Amy R. 
Landry, Scott 
Rotstein, David S. 
Touhey, Kathleen M. 
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Citable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/1505
As published
https://doi.org/10.1109/OCEANS.2006.306792
DOI
10.1109/OCEANS.2006.306792
Abstract
Unlike smaller marine mammals that lack the mass and power to break free from serious entanglements in fixed fishing gear, right whales can do so, but they are not always rope free. The remaining rope can gradually constrict one or more body parts and the resulting debilitation and ultimate death can take many months. Thus the practices that lead to these mortalities need to be viewed not only as a conflict between the cultural and socioeconomic value of a fishery versus a potential species extinction process, but also in terms of an extreme animal welfare issue.
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Author Posting. © IEEE, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of IEEE for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings Oceans 2006, Boston, MA, USA, 3 pp, doi:10.1109/OCEANS.2006.306792.
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