“It was quite obvious to see from the footage that this was an animal that had really starved over a couple of weeks, it was quite thin, and it was also covered in sea lice that usually multiply quite quickly when those whales start to slow down,” he said.

Divers look to free an entangled humpback whale off Yamba in northern NSW. Source: AAP / AP

Meynecke said more needs to be done to prevent whale entanglements.

Meynecke said this is only the number of whales that humans have encountered, and the true figure is likely double.

“So [we want to do] whatever we can do to work side by side with the whales, because they’re not going anywhere, so we’ve got to make sure that we’re viable and make sure that we do whatever we can to avoid entanglements.”

New technologies

“So, if it takes a bit longer to get that first one to the surface, it’s not so bad, but if we have to do it for every trap, it makes it a bit hard.”

“The fishermen are very aware of the number of whales increasing over many, many years.  We’re very much looking at co-existence, we want the whales to migrate safely, having safe passage, but we also want fishers to have safe passage,” she said.

“We are really trying to hunt down as many ideas as possible and then connect and bring people over so we can adapt. Every operation is very different, so having that suite of different gears is really important,” she said.

Calls for consistent fishing regulations

“Generally, what happens is you’ll see a whale breach or do a blow or anything like that, but what we’re looking for is like a leading trail behind the whale, because that then gives us an indication that something is entangled,” he said.