This story originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Green Guide 2025/26,
a collaboration publication between ‘Santa Barbara Independent’ and ‘Bluedot Living‘.
Dave Beezer, captain of the whale-watching vessel the Condor Express, spends six days a week on the water introducing excited passengers to the mighty cetacean inhabitants of the Santa Barbara Channel. For three decades he’s been scanning the horizon for spouts and “footprints,” the round, glassy pattern left on the surface of the ocean by a whale’s forward momentum.
Dave even recognizes individual whales by the patterns on their flukes and the scars on their backs. “I know these animals,” he says. And many of them know him, even if they don’t remember him. That’s because Dave, as longtime leader of a federally sanctioned Whale Entanglement Team (WET), has had a hand in saving many of their lives.
Dave and his Santa Barbara-based crew of volunteers ― boaters, surfers, and divers, including a former Navy SEAL ― are part of NOAA’s National Large Whale Entanglement Network, which jumps into action when a whale is spotted wrapped in fishing gear or marine debris.
Some whales are able to shed the gear on their own, but those that can’t may drag it for days, months, or even years. The tangles can interfere with swimming, eating, and breathing, and in severe cases, can cut off the blood flow to flippers and tails, resulting in a long, painful death. “It’s brutal,” Dave says.
The goal of the team is simple ― cut the line and free the whale ― but the process is delicate and dangerous. A tangled whale doesn’t know that the boat buzzing around it is there to help, Dave explains, and navigating around a distressed, flailing, 50-ton animal is a difficult task, even for trained experts. People have been killed doing it.
Before the team breaks out carbon-fiber poles affixed with specialty knives, they study the entanglement with a drone from above and a waterproof GoPro from below. That’s because they only get so many approaches at the whale before it runs and dives, and they want to make as few cuts as possible. “You really have to go forensic on the wrap,” Dave explains. “You have to be a detective to figure it out.”
Once they develop a game plan, the team launches its inflatable “cut boat” from a larger vessel and gets to work. “The whole approach is based on safety and not getting hurt,” Dave Beezer says. “You have to remain very level-headed and not let adrenaline get the best of you.” And you never, ever get in the water, he says.
The beauty of the national network, Dave explains, is its ability to locate, track, and intercept whales that can swim up to 100 miles a day. “It’s like finding a needle in the great Pacific Ocean haystack,” he says. The teams ― about a dozen are scattered up and down the West Coast, with the same amount on the East Coast and around Hawaii ― are in constant radio contact and will often attach a telemetry buoy to an entanglement to follow the whale’s movements.
On that point, and again stressing the safety issue, Dave asks anyone who sees an entangled whale to keep their distance and call it in. Sometimes, a well-meaning boater will try to cut the line themselves, which may shorten it, cinch it, and give the WET team less to work with.
Responders may also try to attach large floats (or “kegs”) to the entangling material. This technique, an adaptation of an old whaling technique called “kegging,” adds buoyancy and drag that makes it harder for the whale to dive. Many of their newer techniques come from East Coast teams, where the North Atlantic right whale is critically endangered; less than 400 of them remain.
Year by year, the regional number of entanglement reports varies dramatically, Dave says. In 2022, dozens of incidents were recorded in the Santa Barbara Channel, with only a few in 2023 and 2024. In the fall of 2024 alone, Monterey Bay saw more than 20.
Humpbacks are the most common species to get wrapped up, with gray whales a close second, Dave says. He’s personally helped rescue a sperm whale calf, a full-grown blue whale, and a humpback named “Lucky,” who was grounded by gear 15 years ago off Santa Cruz Island. Every once in a while, Dave still sees him swimming through the channel.
If You Spot an Entangled Whale
The best way to help is to immediately report the sighting to the local National Large Whale Entanglement Response Network or the U.S. Coast Guard on VHF CH-16. NOAA advises, “Then, stand by at a safe distance until authorized response team members arrive, and provide any photos or videos to NOAA Fisheries.”
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