Namibia's rich waters attract many marine species, including dolphins, whales, turtles and, of course, our seals. All of them are severely affected by the global plastic crisis and specifically ghost fishing gear. The term "ghost" gear refers to any fishing gear that has been abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded.

Ghost fishing gear is a major threat to marine animals all over the world and we feel the impact of this human/animal conflict every day when we have to rescue seals from all sorts of plastic. We have disentangled 662 seals this year alone!

While we deal mainly with seals, we have always been expecting other entangled animals. A few months ago, we found our first whale. We were too late, he was already dead, killed by thick ghost ropes. It was a horrible sight for the crew. There was nothing left for us to do, except remove as much rope as possible to prevent further entanglements.

This week, we saw our first live entangled whale.

The adult humpback whale was spotted by the team from the Namibian Dolphin Project while on a boat cruise. They immediately reported the whale to the local stranding network. The animal was trapped in old ghost ropes from an abandoned oyster farm, he was scared and cried in visible agony.

We called our friend Steven Louw, he is not only a commercial diver and salvage expert, he is also a committed conservationist and has done this type of rescue before.
Our team jumped onto his boat and assisted him as much as possible while he free dived into the water to cut the whale loose. We have no possibility to assess any injuries, but we did see him take off again, with his mate, heading out for safer waters.

We cannot understand how it is accepted by local authorities and private oyster farm owners to leave their rubbish in the open. It is well documented how ghost fishing gear continues to kill, and that nothing is being done to stop this insanity.

Hopefully we can change that. We have been planning a ghost rope campaign for a while now and we will use this whale entanglement as a reminder to speed it up and get started. We cannot clear the ocean from tiny loops of fishing line, but we can get some of the big stuff out, so at least our whales are a bit safer in Walvis Bay - a place that is even named after them!

We do not like sitting around. While we have to stop seal rescues during breedings season to protect the newborns, we will do preventative work and remove as much ghost fishing gear as possible. We owe it to our planet.

Thank you from OCN