Fisheries experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration think the whale got caught in a crab trap line farther up the coast in Northern California and was unable to free itself. The whale was spotted off the coast of San Diego over the weekend, and by Monday had made the 65-mile trek back north to the Orange County coastline.

It was located by a whale-watching company off the coast of Dana Point, Calif., on Monday morning. But as the rescue team tried to get close, it became more and more agitated.

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“The whale got disturbed and began diving for longer periods,” said Michael Milstein, a spokesman for NOAA, in a phone interview. NOAA attempted to attach a telemetry buoy to the gear that was attached to the whale so that if they lost the animal, they could continue to track it. Unfortunately that endeavor also failed.

“Essentially it was dusk, and night was coming, and the whale was becoming harder to follow,” Milstein said.

This process was made all the more difficult by the creature’s size. Blue whales can grow to about 100 feet long and can weight as much as 135 tons. The whale’s tongue alone can weigh over two tons.

Milstein said that the rope is certainly causing the animal severe pain. “The whale is essentially towing both the line and the [crab] trap attached to it,” he said. “It’s constant pressure. It’s wrapped around the head in some way, and depending on how its entangled it’s cutting into the whale’s flesh and blubber.”

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NOAA collected this underwater video using a GoPro camera when the team reached the blue whale on Monday. “You can see the line is coming down both sides of the animal and it’s going over the tail,” said Justin Greenman, the assistant stranding coordinator with NOAA Fisheries. “One line is going straight down, so that line is attached to the crab pot.”

“It’s a couple hundred-pound pot,” Greenman added.

Greenman was not on the team that attempted this rescue, but he often leads teams on similar disentanglement efforts. He said that entanglements that involve the mouth are difficult for the team and for the animal. As he watched the video of the rescue effort, he could tell it was a challenge.

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“The line was interacting with the mouth and the head,” Greenman said, “and then you have to come up alongside a very large and very confused animal. You’re putting a knife next to its face and they can see it with their eyes.”

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The NOAA team eventually pulled the gear up so they could make a cut, which is when they decided to remove the telemetry equipment — a buoy that costs “several thousand dollars,” according to Greenman.

“The attempt was to remove the telemetry buoy for a time, make the cut, and then reattach the telemetry,” Greenman said. “But then, unfortunately, the animal became restless and didn’t want to cooperate.”

Monday was the first attempt ever made to rescue a blue whale, according to NOAA. In September 2015, an entangled blue whale was spotted, but rescuers were not able to make an attempt.

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“This is the first blue whale that we’ve really gotten close enough to to actually attempt to disentangle it,” Milstein said.

Blue whales have been seen in this area, but they are not the most common type of whale off the California coast. Humpback and gray whales are the most common whales that are reported entangled to NOAA, of which there were 61 in 2015. Milstein said there has definitely been an uptick in entanglement reports, but it could be for a few reasons. People are becoming more aware of the effort and might be reporting more frequently. Whale populations in the Pacific have also grown after coming under protection by the Endangered Species Act.

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There’s another reason NOAA thinks things are changing, though. “Ocean conditions have been rather unusual in recent years,” Milstein said. “The water has been unusually warm, and it seems to be causing shifts in the prey of many of these animals. It may, in fact, be leading them into the shore to feed.”

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The closer to the shore they get, the more likely they are to encounter things like crab pots and fishing lines. So far in 2016, 40 entanglements have been reported.

NOAA is relying on the marine community — boaters, whale watching companies, the Coast Guard— to contact them if the blue whale, or any other entangled whale, is spotted. NOAA asks that you call 877-SOS-WHAL (877-767-9425) or radio the Coast Guard, and stay with the animal at a safe distance.

“The public has always offered support for our work, and while we appreciate concern, we want people to know that we have a trained group of folks that work on these teams,” Greenman said.

As a part of that training, these expert rescuers do not enter the water, and NOAA asks that no one else enter the water near an entangled whale, either.