My name is Regulus. I was named after the brightest star in the constellation Leo and nicknamed Reggie. I was born in 1983. My mother’s name was Spoon. This is part of my story.
It was one of those beautiful New England mornings in the North Atlantic ocean in the year 2005, and on this day I was out for a swim and stirring up some plankton. Unlike my mates, I never learned the proper way to do this. Most of the others slapped the water to bring food to the surface, but I slapped my side. This made me unique, and there I was, happily dining on plankton and small fish like herring or mackerel. Oh! Perhaps I should tell you I am a humpback whale.
On this morning, things were going quite swimmingly, pardon the pun, when all of a sudden, as I dove toward the ocean bottom, something went horribly wrong. I was caught on something strange, and it held me tight. The more I struggled to free myself the tighter it got, and it started ripping and tearing into my flesh. Oh God, how it hurt! What was it? I had never felt anything like this, and I was so scared, so very, very scared.
A nylon line formed a loop around my belly and back and cut into my right flipper. As I fought for my life, I saw people in boats and became even more frightened and began to swim away. I took deep breaths and then dove and stayed hidden as long as possible. After all, I had already suffered enough pain at the hands of the land animals. I stayed hidden in spite of the pain for a very long time. As my fear and pain drove me further out to sea and deeper into the ocean’s depths, I knew I was going to die, but I would die where I was born, deep in the ocean.
How was I to know I was avoiding those who were trying to help me? I later learned it was a research rescue team, who were forced to give up when they couldn’t find me. Then on the morning of November 28, 2005, four months after I had been discovered entangled, I was again sighted and the research team confirmed I was with another humpback whale and was gear free but in very poor condition with deep wounds across my back and in my flippers. Eventually I recovered and was seen using my unique style of flipper slapping. The rescuers estimated I had been struggling to live for as long as two months.
Once again I could swim and gulp in the North Atlantic, happy to face each morning alive and playing with the seagulls and other humpbacks. My story had a happy ending, but unfortunately many entangled whales die a painful, lonely death.
Fishermen need to fish and whales need to feed, they just need to keep a safe distance from each other. I hope fishermen find a way to protect whales while doing the work that brings them their own survival.
There’s more on Reggie in the podcast. Join me on the shores of Rambling Harbor.