Researchers have observed an increase in the number of whale entanglements in Australian waters. Fishing gear and shark nets can injure and trap marine life, which can contribute to slow, torturous deaths.
Over a period of just a few months as of October, Griffith University researcher Olaf Meynecke and his team in South East Queensland documented 48 entanglements of humpback whales off the Australian coast. As Meynecke wrote at The Conversation, that's more than his team recorded throughout all of last year.
The researcher went on to explain that while humpback whales have made a strong com