A man freed a whale from a fishing net. Then it killed him, friends say.

[yuiyoshida]

Joe Howlett was no stranger to the risky work of rescuing whales.

More than 15 years ago, the Canadian lobster fisherman co-founded the Campobello Whale Rescue Team, an "intrepid group of fishermen who care so much about whales that they are willing to risk their lives to save them."

From their base on Campobello Island, just across the border from Maine, the group's volunteer members would respond to dozens of reports of whales entangled in fishing gear off the coast of New Brunswick. Though the giant marine animals could be unpredictable when trapped, for Howlett, setting a whale free was worth the painstaking, dangerous work, friends said.


"This is something he loved and there's no better feeling than getting a whale untangled," Mackie Greene, the captain of the whale rescue group, told the Canadian Press.

However, tragedy struck Monday when Howlett was killed in an operation to free a trapped North Atlantic right whale off the coast of New Brunswick, according to a statement by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. He had been on a "fast response vessel" belonging to the Canadian agency at the time of the incident with several others, the department said.

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http://www.sfgate.com/lifestyle/article/A-man-freed-a-whale-from-a-fishing-net-Then-it-11283359.php#photo-3368855

[sinkingfeeling]

1. A terrible loss to that community. And a wonderful, humane man

[maveric]

2. Will Sessions declare a new War on Whales policy?