Missing for 6 Days in the Fog. Then This Whale Swam Free.
A humpback whale named Pop Tart -- the calf of famed Salish Sea whale Big Mama -- was spotted entangled in more than 30 meters of fishing rope off Victoria, BC this past July. She vanished for days at a time as whale-watching crews from both Canada and Washington state searched through fog
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For six days this past July, a whale went missing in the fog along the border between Canada and the United States — and instead of giving up, an entire community of strangers went looking for her, day after day, until they found her.
Her name is Pop Tart. She's the 2016 calf of Big Mama, one of the most recognized humpback whales in the Salish Sea — if you've ever been on a whale-watching boat off Vancouver Island or the San Juan Islands, there's a good chance someone pointed her out to you.
Back on July 2nd, a crew with Orca Spirit Adventures, out of Victoria, British Columbia, spotted Pop Tart with fishing gear wrapped tight around one of her pectoral flippers. Canada's Fisheries and Oceans marine mammal response team rushed out, but by the time they reached her, weather and daylight had run out. A drone got close enough to measure the damage: more than thirty meters of rope, trailing a buoy, cinched around a young whale's fin.
Then she vanished. No sighting on July 3rd. None on July 4th.
This is where the story could have ended — one more entangled whale, lost in open water. Instead, whale-watching companies on both sides of the border turned it into a shared mission. When Pop Tart resurfaced on July 5th in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, boats kept eyes on her for hours, tracking her position, until fog swallowed her again after a dive.
On July 6th, the search only grew. Prince of Whales sent out a dedicated vessel with a naturalist aboard. Orca Spirit Adventures relocated her east of Race Rocks. Responders finally reached the area — but rough weather forced them to hold off on the rescue itself. All they could do was clip a tracking buoy onto the trailing gear and hope.
July 7th brought nothing. No whale, no answers.
Then, on July 8th, a boat from Eagle Wing Tours found her again near Race Rocks — and this time, the rope was gone. The crew stayed with her until Canadian responders arrived and sent up a drone for one final check. Pop Tart was completely free.
Erin Gless, who runs the Pacific Whale Watch Association, put it simply afterward: entanglement in fishing gear is one of the biggest threats humpback whales face anywhere in the world — and Pop Tart's happy ending only happened because whale watchers and trained rescue teams treated six straight days of searching as worth it.
That's the part of this story I can't stop thinking about. Nobody who spent those six days on the water knew Pop Tart personally. She's not a pet, she's not livestock — she's a wild animal most of them will never get close to again. They looked for her anyway, because somewhere along the way, a whale with a silly name became part of their community too.
Sources: komonews.com · albernivalleynews.com
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